Day 22: April 8 - Spring Has Sprung, But I'll Be Damned If Im Leaving My Pillow Fort
No way in hell I’m doing Corona AND pollen.
Thomas Morley - Now Is The Month Of Maying
Madrigals are crazy fun and underappreciated by choirs because Whitacre is easier to pull off (HOT TAKE (softer take: choirs are often mixed in skill level and these are HARD don’t@me)). Morley’s introduction to spring is technically a ballett, a part-dance song similar to a madrigal and characterized by a fa-la-la chorus. In CLASSIC madrigal fashion tho, this is not about nature, but actually about sex (we’ve all seen how rowdy acapella groups are, this is at least historically informed smut). Lively and tuneful, a good introduction for this playlist as well (since most spring, especially our current one, are not as happy and carefree as they appear, as shown later on…). But none of that matters when the BEAT DROPS Y’ALL! Performed here by Amarcord under Micahel Metzler.
Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring: V. Doppio Movimento
From Aaron Coplands ballet suite, Appalachian Spring, this movement features five variations on a Shaker theme, Tis a Gift To Be Simple. Beginning with a clarinet solo on the tune, it then expands to the winds, a maestoso take in the strings, a fanfare in the brass with string runs (a reference to Vivaldi’s Spring? Excluded here because too on the nose), a sentimental wind recap, and a grand finale with half-time timpani. Lively, grand, and playful, these variations show Copland as the quintessential mid-century orchestrator, from whom so much of the ‘American’ symphony sound came, especially the Pops genre. Performed here the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein.
Gene de Paul & Johnny Mercer - Spring, Spring, Spring
A softly, delightful tune from the 1954 musical movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. One of 7 brothers living up in the mountains descends down into the village and gets himself a wife, Milly, (as you do, like grabbing some eggs and milk), brings her back up to his mountain cabin to meet all his brothers. The six others decide they need wives now too (classic brother stuff: “No fair! I want one too!). Milly agrees to help these brothers become presentable (sort of an Appalachian King and I) and what follows is a series of courtship, capers, and pie. This tune, at the end of the movie, is about all the couples reconciliations, their love re-blossoming, just as nature blossoms after a winter. Fun and light and very tuneful. From the movie recording with Jane Powell, Virginia Gibson, and Howard Keel.
Chet Baker - I Get Along Without You Very Well
A classic tune about being strong (but also not) after a split. Chet Baker croons a sardonic self-pitying pastel croon against a celesta and soft kit, gently lying to himself into an evanescently devastating twist: “except perhaps in spring.”
James Arthur, Ty Dolla $ign, SHOTTY HORROH - Treehouse
English rapper James arthur teams up with Ty Dolla $ign and SHOTTY HORROH to bring us a tune about it being okay to not feel okay and hiding away with friends to ride out the malaise. A good message propped up by laid-back vibes. Makes you want to go back to childhood and read a little book up in a treehouse or to adolescence and just wander the woods in a mood.
Alex Turner - Hiding Tonight
Shefflield sadboi-rocker Alex Turner, frontman of the Artic Monkeys, brings a characteristic moodiness to this tune about those withdrawals you do when you’re working on yourself (unintentionally building off the last song). A soft, almost tropical vibe that makes me wonder what if fellow Northerners the Waikiki Beach Boys made a ballad. Structured around refrains of ‘Tomorrow I’ll be [better]…but I’m quite alright hiding tonight,” I think this speaks to those of us fortunate to be able to ride through this with just a soft malaise. Included because it touches on that desire to feel happy and hopeful with the weather, but not fully so. And for these lines:
I'll have a spring in my step
And I'll get there soon
To sing you a happy tune, tomorrow