Associated with the concept of change, songs about October are often clouded with a sense of despair, mirroring the overcast nature of the dying mid-autumn trees alongside the tumult of the transforming seasons.
Whether you’re wishing the autumn would never roll back round, or your heartbreak feels the same as an endless grey day, our list collects the best pop and rock songs about October, crossing the eras and covering it all.
Songs About October
1. Amy Winehouse – October Song
Appearing on her debut album, Frank, Amy Winehouse’s October Song uses the autumnal concept of southwards migration as a metaphor for losing love and happiness.
Winehouse weaves these themes of transformation masterfully throughout her sound, threading natural, blue-skied tones between mildly disorientating jazz harmonies, crafting a sonic reflection of October’s decay spawning the chance of fresh regrowth.
Taken literally, this track illustrates a pet bird flying free from its cage to find a mate but, beneath under the light of October, Winehouse’s message evolves, describing a lover fleeing the threat of the bleak winter to find a sense of summer elsewhere;
“With dread I woke in my bed to shooting pains up in my head, lovebird, my beautiful bird, spoken ’til one day she couldn’t be heard.”
2. U2 – October
U2’s snippet track, October, uses its atmospheric pop harmony to depict seasonal change as vividly through its instrumentals as through its sparse scattering of lyrics.
This track embodies the sombre feeling of endings, tangled with the grief which blinds one from seeing the transformative potential following a metaphorical death.
October resounds with the sense of not being quite fully-fledged and lacking the energy to be so; a creative reflection of marcescent trees stranded halfway between life and death in the middle of the autumn months; “October, and the trees are stripped bare of all they wear, what do I care?”
While U2’s minimalist poetry focuses upon inevitable changes, October draws equal attention to things evergreen and eternal, whether you perceive their lyrics to represent true love, God or the pure bliss of nature; “October, and kingdoms rise, and kingdoms fall, but you go on and on.”
3. Alessia Cara – October
Alessia Cara’s 2019 release, October, is a pop track painted with Instagram aesthetics and the youthful aura of honeymoon-phase romance.
This track is awash with a nostalgic ambience, its retro indie-rock flairs detailed with captivating modernism, striking the instinctive feeling of growth and wisdom gained through experience.
Centring her track around sun-bathing in summer love and friendships, Cara crafts the bleaker month of October into a natural metaphor for the inevitable decay of passion;
“Speaking in tongues in the backseat, just one little glance, I know what you mean … I’m gonna miss it when it’s over, I hope we never see October.”
4. Yebba – October Sky
Yebba’s October Sky is a phenomenally cinematic pop piece composed simply of acoustic guitar and vocals. Yebba fashion a breathtakingly natural, woodsy ambience, adorning their folksy harmony with fluttering melodies which flux and cascade like each passing season.
Between arrays of whimsical, autumn-inspired poetry, October Sky is lyrically focused upon childhood reminiscence at a seasoned adult age, its title metaphor blossoming from a vivid memory of shooting a toy rocket into the October sky.
Yebba’s track translates equally as well to grieving a lost romance as it does to grieving lost youth, the narrator struggling to find solace in the months following an ending;
“There’s a picture of us in a layer of dust on the mantle, right by my cigarettes that I smoke, since you left, ’cause you said you had to fly, in your October Sky … As I go back home to Memphis, I remember days that I was outside shooting rockets almost as high in your October sky.”
5. Barry Manilow – When October Goes
Barry Manilow’s classic pop track perfectly captures the decay of the seasons through its harmonic contortions.
Flooded with jazz chords echoing with the pangs of heartbreak, When October Goes uses rich warm tones from a single piano, lined with a single voice, to mirror its lyrical theme of lovelorn loneliness.
When October Goes is drenched in enchanting melancholy, its vintage ambience shadowed by weariness in the wake of an ending;
“And when October goes, the same old dream appears and you are in my arms to share the happy years, I turn my head away to hide the helpless tears, oh how I hate to see October go.”
Manilow’s most unique aspect is the positive association with the dreary month, making October the narrator’s destination rather than a place to be escaped; “How I hate to see October go, I should be over it now I know, it doesn’t matter much, how old I grow, I hate to see October go.”
6. EVANESCENCE – OCTOBER
This early and obscure Evanescence track was cut from their debut self-titled EP in 1998 and is now mostly unrecognised by the band, doomed to float eternally within the internet’s abstract.
October carries a much different sound than expected from the symphonic goth metal band, anchored in operatics and soulful acoustics rather than industrial power.
Evanescence subtly draw on the themes of leaves trailing to the ground and life returning to its earthy roots, regaining animation once the new season springs.
The band blend this concept in using prayer-like lyrics, detailing a return to God, to an ex or to the memory of the departed in hope that they will pull you through the dismal season;
“I can’t run anymore, I fall before you, here I am, I have nothing left, though I’ve tried to forget, you’re all that I am … Broken, lifeless, I give up, you’re my only strength,, without you, I can’t go on anymore.”
7. The Smallest Creature – October Song
The Smallest Creature’s 2020 rock track October Song is a shamefully unheard anthem submerged within the murky depths of the algorithm. =
Shaped with the mesmerising energy of a live performance, this eerily melodic track is anchored in the concept of accepting your fate and the changing tides of life; “All the best gotta rest, all the lights will dim, all the same gotta save all that’s spinning over me.”
October Song matches inevitable misfortune with the drive to develop and discover better elsewhere, crafting a piece for anyone seeking the spark to either progress or dwell deep within their stagnant misery alike.