11 April 2007

I Post Song Lyrics Sometimes: Spring is Here

Spring isn’t here. Every morning I get up and it’s still colder than I think it should be by now. I mean, it’s April. Maybe global warming has “spoiled” us all as we ride the fast train to no ice caps and a higher sea level, but of course, more energy in the ecosystem doesn’t just mean overall rising temperatures, but more erratic weather, more cold snaps, and blizzards every four years between mild winters. We don’t just have more heat trapped in the atmosphere, that heat is energy and that energy can fuel cold fronts as well as hurricanes. As more energy floods the system, winter and summer become longer and spring and autumn, my two favorite seasons, become shorter.

So with this cheery news in mind, I bring you a lovely, melancholy song from a 1938 Rogers and Hart musical called I Married an Angel. The song, “Spring is Here,” captures my feelings this morning because not only are April, May, and June sadly out of tune, but the first line is a special delivery of the whole damn show.

And now for the song.


Once there was a thing called spring,
When the world was writing verses like yours and mine.
All the lads and girls would sing,
When we sat at little tables and drank May wine.
Now April, May, and June are sadly out of tune,
life has stuck a pin in the balloon.

Spring is here.
Why doesn't my heart go dancing?
Spring is here.
Why isn't the waltz entrancing?
No desire, no ambition leads me,
Maybe it's because nobody needs me?
Spring is here.
Why doesn't the breeze delight me?
Stars appear,
Why doesn't the night invite me?
Maybe it's because nobody loves me.
Spring is here, I hear.

[dance break with clarinet solo]

Why doesn't the breeze delight me?
Stars appear,
Why doesn't the night invite me?
Maybe it's because nobody loves me.
Spring is here, I hear.

“Spring Is Here” from I Married an Angel. Music by Richard Rogers, lyrics by Lorenz Hart, 1938.