See You in September
"See You in September" is a song written by Sid Wayne and Sherman Edwards. It was first recorded by the Pittsburgh vocal group the Tempos. This first version peaked at No. 23 in the summer of 1959. The most popular take on "See You In September" was by the Happenings in 1966, which reached No. 3. Background Sid Wayne would recall the song's inception: "I was in the habit of going from my home on Long Island every day to Brill Building, in the Times Square area of New York City [to] meet with different songwriters there. We'd eat at Jack Dempsey's or The Turf Restaurant and then we'd go up to one of the publishers' offices and work in the piano room. We'd sit around saying to each other, 'What do you want to write today? A hit or a standard?'" At 11 a.m. on a Friday in June 1959 Wayne thus met up with Sherman Edwards: "he said, 'What do you want to write?' 'I'd like to write a song called See You in September,"' I said. We talked it back and forth and I think I may have contributed part of the opening music, but with Sherman it didn't matter, because he could throw me back half the lyric — that's how he worked. I think probably by two in the afternoon we got the song finished. It needed to be written; it was like boiling inside of us." By 4:30 PM that day, Wayne and Edwards had reworked their composition, simplifying it so as to appeal to the teen demographic, and proceeded to make the rounds of publishers to pitch the song which, after one rejection, met with an enthusiastic reception from Jack Gold, owner of the local Paris label. By 8 PM, he had telephoned the Tempos in their hometown of Pittsburgh. The group had been flown into New York City by the next day, Saturday. Sid Wayne: "By Monday the record was cut [with the Billy Mure orchestra], test pressings were Thursday, and by Friday the song was played on WNEW in New York. The thing took off like wildfire… Five hundred dollars to split between the two of us [ie. Wayne & Edwards]… was a damn good week's pay in 1961." The Tempos' "See You in September" failed to become a hit in the New York City area and despite breaking in San Francisco in June, the single did not reach the national charts until that July. Despite a subsequent swift ascent on the Billboard Hot 100, the single's momentum fell sharply at the end of August with a resultant No. 23 peak. Although overshadowed by the Happenings' No. 3 remake, the Tempos' version of "See You in September" did gain considerable traction in 1973 by virtue of its inclusion on the American Graffiti soundtrack. Mike Lazo (top tenor), Jim Drake, Tom Monito, Gene Schachter The Happenings version Bob Miranda of the Happenings recalls that he and the other members of the group