Earth, Wind & Fire

For forty years, the answer was always the same: the 21st of September does not mean anything.

Maurice White and Allee Willis, who wrote "September" together, said many times that they tried several dates in the lyric and kept that one because it was the one that fell best on the melody. No anniversary, no secret.

In 2019, Marilyn White, Maurice's widow, told a different story.

What the widow said

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal she explained that the 21st of September was the due date of their son Kahbran. She described it as a coded message between them and their child.

Allee Willis, who had signed the song with him, said she did not know until Marilyn told her.

Which means that for four decades the co-writer of the band's most famous song repeated in good faith an explanation that her writing partner had not given her in full.

Today both versions have to be told. And the second one is, on top of that, the better story.

The lesson of the "ba-dee-ya"

The other anecdote about that song is worth an entire songwriting manual.

The chorus contains a piece of babble with no meaning at all. Willis hated it and asked Maurice White what it was supposed to say.

White answered that it did not matter.

Willis said afterwards that this was the greatest songwriting lesson of her life: never let the lyric get in the way of the groove.

Allee Willis was, and it is worth being precise because she is often assumed to have been a man, a woman songwriter. She died on 24 December 2019, at seventy-two. She also wrote the theme for the series "Friends" and much of "The Color Purple" on Broadway.

The missing credits

"September" was written by Allee Willis and Maurice White, over a guitar sequence developed by Al McKay. It reached number eight on the Hot 100 and number one on the R&B chart.

"Boogie Wonderland" is not the band's alone: it is credited to Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions, and it was written by Jon Lind and Allee Willis. It reached number six.

"Shining Star" did go to number one, on both charts.

The band's name is not generic either. It comes from Maurice White's birth chart — he was a Sagittarius: fire, earth and air. Wind is the air. There is no water in his chart, and that is why there is no water in the name.

The 2026 documentary

In June 2026 a documentary about the band directed by Questlove was released, and it takes apart a good deal of the spiritual portrait with which Maurice White has always been described.

It documents that he preached an ethic free of drugs and alcohol while reserving complete sexual freedom for himself on tour, that he had several children outside his marriage, and that he paid his musicians less than they were owed and denied them writing credits.

Philip Bailey, the group's falsetto from the beginning, appears in the film speaking frankly about how angry he came to be with him.

There is no need to tear down the music because of it. But a profile written three months after that release cannot repeat the version of the mystical leader without saying that there is another one.

Who is left

Maurice White died on 4 February 2016, at seventy-four. He had been diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1992: he lived with the illness for twenty-four years, not a few months.

The saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk died in 2022 and the drummer Fred White, Maurice's brother, on 1 January 2023.

The band is held up today by Verdine White, Philip Bailey and Ralph Johnson, all three there since 1972, and they are still touring.

Bailey also had, outside the band, one of the biggest hits of his life in a duet with Phil Collins in 1984.

What to remember

Earth, Wind & Fire are proof that you can make extremely sophisticated music that people dance to without ever noticing how hard it is.

Put on "September", "Shining Star" or "Let's Groove" and you will hear funk, soul, jazz, gospel and African percussion fused into something that sounds simple and is not, with a horn section that resembles no other.

And when the 21st of September comes round and half the world puts the song on, keep in mind that the date did mean something: it was the day a boy was going to be born.

Remember them like this: for the joy, which is real and is enormous. And knowing that the man who organised it was rather more complicated than the sermon he gave.

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Sources

Earth, Wind & Fire, American band founded in Chicago in 1969 by Maurice White. Its name comes from the elements present in Maurice White's birth chart, a Sagittarius —fire, earth and air—, in which water does not appear. "September" was written by Allee Willis and Maurice White, over a guitar sequence developed by the guitarist Al McKay; it was released in November 1978 and reached number eight on the Billboard Hot 100, number one on the R&B chart and number three in the United Kingdom. For decades, both Maurice White and Allee Willis maintained that the date of the 21st of September was chosen purely for melodic reasons; in 2019, in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Marilyn White, Maurice White's widow, revealed that this was the due date of their son Kahbran, and Allee Willis stated that she had not known until then. Willis also recounted that the chorus includes a meaningless syllable that she questioned and White kept, an episode from which she drew the conclusion not to put the lyric ahead of the groove. Allee Willis, songwriter, died on 24 December 2019 at the age of 72. "Boogie Wonderland" is credited to Earth, Wind & Fire with The Emotions and was written by Jon Lind and Allee Willis, reaching number six on the Hot 100; "Shining Star" was number one on the Hot 100 and on the R&B chart. The documentary "Earth, Wind & Fire (To Be Celestial vs That's the Weight of the World)", directed by Questlove, premiered at the Tribeca Festival on 3 June 2026 and on HBO on 7 June 2026; it documents the distance between Maurice White's spiritual, substance-free discourse and his personal conduct on tour, the children born outside his marriage, and the insufficient pay and lack of credits given to his bandmates, and it includes statements by Philip Bailey on the matter. Maurice White was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1992 and died on 4 February 2016, at 74. The saxophonist Andrew Woolfolk died on 24 April 2022 and the drummer Fred White, Maurice's brother, on 1 January 2023. The current line-up is led by Verdine White, Philip Bailey and Ralph Johnson, all three having joined in 1972, with touring activity in 2026. Philip Bailey had an international hit in 1984 in a duet with Phil Collins. Phil Collins has his own profile in this series. Externally authored text, edited and verified for Rebobinados. Interpretations of the meaning of their work are offered as the author's reading. No song lyrics are reproduced, for copyright reasons. Information drawn from The Wall Street Journal, Variety, NPR, Billboard, Wikipedia and other coverage.