Songs of the Month

The Vitamin String Quartet’s gorgeous renditions of songs by The Decemberists is scheduled for release this month. The album includes Decemberists favorites including “O Valencia” and “The Mariner’s Revenge Song.” In honor of this release and the imminent change of seasons, we give you our five favorite month-of-the-year themed songs. “November Rain”: This iconic, multi-movement epic from Guns n’ Roses 1991 album Use Your Illusion I was released a full eight years after Axl Rose began working on it. The music video for the eight minute 57 second song cost a cool $1.5 million to produce, making it one of the most expensive music videos ever made. The video was done twice, as Axl was dissatisfied with the first attempt. Rose’s then girlfriend, supermodel Stephanie Seymour, plays his girlfriend/wife and wore an $8,000 gown in the video’s wedding scene. “Wake Me Up When September Ends”: This 2005 Green Day hit was rumored to be about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, however Green Day singer Billie Joe Armstrong has stated that he wrote the song about his father, who passed away when Armstrong was ten years old. The song became a tribute to the victims of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina and was the first song performed at the Superdome in New Orleans after the storm. “Month of May”: Arcade Fire closed the 2011 Grammy Awards with this heavy rock anthem immediately after the eight member Canadian indie act won the Album of the Year award for The Suburbs. “A Long December”: This melancholic Counting Crows hit comes from 1996’s Recovering the Satellites. Crows singer Adam Duritz wrote the song while splitting between the recording studio and a hospital where friend who had been seriously injured in a car accident was recovering. The song’s music video features “Friends” star Courtney Cox, who Duritz was dating at the time. “4^th of July, Asbury Park, (Sandy)”: This 1973 songs appears Bruce Springsteen’s The Wild, the Innocent at the E Street Shuffle. The romantic ballad has been described as the “perfect musical study of the Jersey Shore boardwalk culture” and was one of the two Springsteen songs drummer Max Weinberg knew when he auditioned for a spot in the E Street Band in 1974. Be Sure to Check Out: The String Quartet Tribute to Guns N' Roses Available now at iTunes and Amazon Vitamin String Quartet Performs Green Day's American Idiot Available now at iTunes and Amazon Vitamin String Quartet Tirbute to Arcade Fire's Funeral Available now at iTunes and Amazon Hometown: The String Quartet Tribute to Bruce Springsteen Available now at iTunes and Amazon