And so it is! The season of pastoral rebirth is upon us (don’t forget to balance an egg on its other end today!). It is 70 degrees out, sunny and I even spotted a subtle glimpse of purple crocus peeking out from our front lawn. After such a maudlin winter (and those wretched snowstorms everywhere) it’s always such a delight when the warmer weather returns. Though I do in fact have a love hate relationship with the season itself due to some severe grass, pollen and tree allergies, I still find much to appreciate in between the watery eyes and incessant sneezing.
Spring hasn’t been lost on the musical theatre writers either. Oscar Hammerstein’s chorus for Very Warm for May’s “All the Things You Are” starts with the line “You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long.” (It’s a killer song, one of the all time great ballads). Hammerstein also gives Lt. Cable “Younger than Springtime” in South Pacific as a starting point for a list of romantic platitudes. Rodgers and Hart wrote “Spring is Here” for I Married an Angel. Inga Swenson spent her run in Baker Street “Finding Words for Spring” while Jon Cameron Mitchell’s Dickon sang “Winter’s on the Wing” in The Secret Garden.
But leave it to Rodgers and Hammerstein to write a song for a character who gets spring fever in the middle of August. It’s the song that often comes to mind when I find myself mired in the gloom of autumn and spring (especially when I’m out shoveling snow that comes up to my knees).
In honor of the new season, here’s Louanne Hogan dubbing for Jeanne Crain in the 1945 film State Fair: