'September' Co-Writer Comments on Taylor Swift's 'Lethargic as a Drunk Turtle' Earth, Wind & Fire Cover

Willis said that she learned Swift was covering "September" "a few hours before it came out" and, at her publicist's behest, issued a complimentary statement about the version. "I was thrilled Taylor Swift cut 'September,'" Willis, who will be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame next month, said on Friday. "I'm imagining she's going to give it a kind of jagged, 'Shake It Off' kind of feel and it's gonna be great. So I got to sleep happy and excited, but by the time I wake up -- on Friday the 13th, I might add -- the Internet was already a 28-alarm fire."

Like many, Willis -- who subsequently rescinded her statement -- took umbrage that Swift changed the song's opening line from the "21st night of September" to the 28th. But she did say that "everyone has a right to do with a song what they please, so go on with your own bad self, Taylor Swift. I'm honored you'd choose to do my song and that it meant enough to you that you wanted to personalize it to the goddamn 28th night of September, that you wanted to cover it with banjo... and that you changed the sacred ba-de-ya to the more Caucasian ah-ah-ah and make it sound more like a field of daffodils than a Soul Train line."

Willis then led the audience in a sing-along version to the EWF original to "take 'September' back to its happy place... that has kept this Detroiter shaking it up and off for four fat decades."