JAZZ SONGS OF SPRING

“I feel so gay in a melancholy way that it might as well be Spring.” So sings Margy in “State Fair”, a 1945 film with music by Broadway powerhouse duo Rodgers and Hammerstein. Those guys knew a thing or two about human mating behaviour, and won an Oscar for the song “It Might As Well Be Spring”.  “Why do I have Spring Fever when it isn’t even Spring?” Margy muses. Of course, what she means by “Spring Fever” is the state of (o)Estrus - readiness to mate - that naturally occurs in many animals around Easter time. Why do we have Easter eggs? Because the end of April is the peak of the bird nesting season. Do you see the pattern? 

(o)Estrus, Easter … the words have to be related. The root of the first is the Latin for “frenzy” - sounds about right doesn’t it? The second is the name of an Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility. More than a concidence, in this writer’s humble opinion.

“You Must Believe in Spring” is a modern piece by another prolific stage composer, France’s Michel Legrand, from the 1967 film “Les Demoiselles de [= the Damsels of] Rochefort”. In this movie, the fever sufferers are twin sisters Delphine (played by Catherine Deneuve) and Solange (her real-life sister). Rochefort, being a naval port, is full of sailors - not romantic enough for the sensitive, artistic twins. Their mother consoles them with the promise of Easter: “So in a world of snow, Of things that come and go, You must believe in Spring and love.” The latter two, spring and love, clearly go hand-in-hand (no pun intended). Sure enough, the ladies’ longings are sated when the (Easter) carnival comes to town.

While Oestrogen is generally a “Demoiselle” thing, the condition of Spring Fever is not a female-only preserve. In the 1942 movie “I Married an Angel”, music by Rodgers and Hart (sound familiar?), the hero, Count Willie Palaffi, sings the song “Spring is Here” … “so why is my heart not dancing?” He has Spring Fever, but can’t get no satisfaction. Unfortunately, Willie is a rich banker, and all the earthly girls he meets are only interested in his money. He finally comes to the conclusion that the only woman he could find happiness with would be an Angel, and as soon as he meets one he marries her. Problem is, being perfect, she cannot tell a lie, so it turns out that they are incompatible after all (with apologies to bankers everywhere!)  

“They Say It’s Spring”, a 1958 composition by Haymes and Clarke made famous by Blossom Dearie, leans towards the “frenzy” definition of Oestrus: “They say it's spring, This feeling light as a feather… They say it's May That's made me daft as a daisy, It's May, they say, That made the world this crazy. I'm a lark on the wing, the spark of a firefly's fling”. Light-headed, lark, daft, crazy. “A firefly’s fling”: they must have done their homework - in biology, the genus “oestrus” is indeed a species of fly.

Unfortunately, April is not all hearts and flowers. The poet TS Eliot called it “the cruellest month”, in a waste land of unfulfilled desires. The 1921 film “Bombo” starring Al Jolson produced a massive hit with the song “April Showers”. The plot of the movie goes like this: Jolson, in blackface, plays Gus, a poor African American, who is transported back in time to the year 1492, to become the “slave” of Columbus on his voyage to discover America. Those writers sure had a twisted sense of humour! But if today it seems offensive to have a white man in black greasepaint acting as a comical black man, consider this: “The Black and White Minstrel Show”, featuring a white cast with all the men in blackface, played on the BBC until 1978.