Pop Culture Series: September 21

History of September 21: Earth, Wind & Fire

It’s the 21st night of September

Bill Petro
3 min readSep 20, 2024

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September single

When the band Earth, Wind & Fire released the feel-good song September in 1978, it broke into the Top 10 and has been one of their biggest commercial successes.

However, it was initially released on November 18 of that year as a new song on the album “The Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol. 1.

Best of Earth, Wind & Fire, Vol 1

Rolling Stone Magazine calls September one of the “500 Greatest Songs of All Time,” and Billboard magazine ranked it sixth on their top singles.

It’s sold over a million physical copies and over two million digital copies in the U.S. In 2018, it was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, not bad for a 40-year-old song.

It starts with:

Do you remember
The twenty-first night of September?
Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders
While chasin’ the clouds away
Our hearts were ringin’
In the key that our souls were singin’
As we danced in the night, remember
How the stars stole the night away, oh yeah…

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Bill Petro
Bill Petro

Written by Bill Petro

Writer, historian, technologist. Former Silicon Valley tech exec. Author of fascinating articles on history, tech, pop culture, & travel. https://billpetro.com

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