"It Might As Well Be Spring": song history, Commentary, Discography, Performances on Video

"It Might As Well Be Spring"

State Fair, 1945, the only score of Rodgers and Hammerstein written originally for the screen stars Jeanne Crain, Dana Andrews, Dick Haymes and Vivian Blaine. The songwriting team got involved when producer Darryl F. Zanuck saw Oklahoma on Broadway and got the idea that Rodgers and Hammerstein would be perfect to write words and music for a movie-musical version of State Fair, originally a 1932 novel by Phil Stong which had already been made into a film in 1933, starring Janet Gaynor and Will Rogers. Rodgers notes in his autobiography that he and his partner "were immediately won over" after being given a special screening of the earlier film at the Twentieth Century Fox New York office on Fifty-sixth Street. Rodgers further explains that

We made sure, though, that our contract included one provision. Becacuse of our multiple activities in New York, we had no intention of spending an extended length of time in Hollywood, and we insisted that we be allowed to write the songs in the East. Though they found the request a bit unusual, the studio people agreed; the story, which was set in Iowa, would be filmed in California, while the music and lyrics would be written in Fairfield Connecticut, and Doylestown, Pennsylvania [where Rodgers and Hammerstein, respectively, resided] (Musical Stages, 235-236) .

The story opens as the Frakes, an Iowa farm family, get ready for the Iowa State Fair, which takes place every autumn. Margy Frake (Jeanne Crain) the daughter of the family, is perplexed at her lack of satisfaction with her everyday life, a set of feelings more common to spring, a season typically associated with such agitation. It is with this agitation that she departs for the fair setting the plot of the movie in motion -- but before she joins the rest of her family to drive to the fair, she thinks out loud that given these restless, unsettling feelings of hers, "It Might As Well Be Spring."

Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote three memorable songs for State Fair: "It Might as Well Be Spring," "That's for Me" and "It's a Grand Night for Singing." The first two of these are in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook. Despite how grandly memorable, "It's a Grand Night for Singing" gains much of its value from a rousing performance by an ensemble that fills the set with song and dance. It is a theater song par excellence that thrives on the theatrical or Hollywood stage but has not been taken up by many singers for recording, cabaret, or concert--modes of performance that constitute the essence of The Songbook.

Academy Award: "It Might as Well be Spring" won the Academy Award for best song for 1945. Other nominees that year included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook were "Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive"; "Aren't You Glad You're You"; and "I Fall in Love Too Easily." (for all the 1945 nominees, see The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Database.)

Philip Furia and
Michael Lasser,
America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley, New York: Routledge, 2006.

Philip Furia and Michael Lasser are interested in how both Rodgers and Hammerstein use sounds to support the "emotional development" present in the song. They explain how the short vowels in Hammerstein's lyric, as evidenced in a line like "I'm as restess as a willow in a windstorm, I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string" correspond to the singer's restlessnes as does Rodgers' "restless, jumpy melody." The critics go on to point out that later in the song, in the bridge, when the singer's mood becomes more contemplative "the song's line becomes longer and more melodic: "I keep wishing I were somewhere wlse, walking down a strange new street."

Furia and lasser also note that Rodgers, tempermental at the best of times, had a history of conflict with Hollywood studio types who thought they knew more about how his songs should be sung and played than he did. They wanted "It Might As Well be Spring" to be performed as a slow ballad when Rodger's initial intention had been for a 'bright, medium tempo." They prevailed with the proviso that if the preview audience didn't go for the slow version the scene would be reshot. The audience loved it and Rodgers graciously admitted he was wrong (Furia and Lasser, p. 202).

In much the same vein as Furia and Lasser, Gerald Mast astutely recognizes how the versefor "It Might As Well Be Spring" ascends and descends the major scale in formless vocalizing to convey the singer's listlessness" (Mast, p. 170). Mast later goes on to be very specific about how the music, lyric and meaning converge:

The singer's listlessness is mirrored by repetitive musical phrases accompanying soft consonants and vowels: "as restless as a willow in a windstorm," dominated the soft "w"; As busy as a spider spinning daydreams: dominated by the lazy "s." In the next musical phrase, Rodgers deserts his predictable steps to jump up and down the scale in surprising leaps. Hammerstein accompanies the musical jumps with "jumpy" words in both their sounds and meanings: "as jumpy as a puppet on a string" . . . . Hammerstein's words are inseparable from the sounds and feelings of Rodger's music (Mast, p. 207-208) .

The above quote from Rodgers confirms a widely known fact that in his collaboration with Hammerstein the words came first, but in his collaboration with Hart, the opposite was generally true. William Zinsser, who says he generally prefers Rodgers and Hart songs to those by Rodgers and Hammerstein explains his reasoning thus: When he wrote with Hammerstein,

His melodies often turned stately (" Some Enchanted Evening ," " We Kiss in a Shadow "), or grandiose "( Bali Ha'i ," " If I Loved You "), or pretentious ("You'll Never Walk Alone," "Climb Every Mountain"). Partly this was because he was now setting tunes to Hammerstein's lyrics, reversing the order he used with Lorenz Hart. Pre-written lyrics can do that to a composer, suggesting melodies different from the ones he might have created on his own; nothing that Rodgers wrote with Hammerstein reminds me of anything he wrote with Hart. A lyricist's words, however, can also inspire. Hammerstein's lilting lyric for "It Might As Well Be Spring," from State Fair , led Rodgers by the hand to one of his most delicate melodies (Zinsser, pp. 181-182) .

There has been no shortage of commentary on the differences between the songs written by Rodgers and Hart and those written by Rodgers and Hammerstein. Hart's lyrics are more likely to be ironic, even bitter, and although often very funny and certainly comic more often than not don't let the listener escape a whiff of the tragic. Hammerstein's lyrics are filled with unalloyed beautiful mornings, the beauties of getting to know other human beings and a general sense of optimism, even if sometimes the optimist is a bit cock-eyed. Two songs that bring the two lyricists together more closely than usual are "Spring Is Here" by Rodgers and Hart and "It Might As Well Be Spring" by Rodgers and Hammerstein. This is not mostly because the primary source of imagery is spring, but because in "It Might As Well Be Spring" Hammerstein ventures into Hart's territory of irony albeit by necessity rather than intention.

Oscar Hammerstein's lyric for "It Might As Well Be Spring" is not only "lilting" as Zinsser notes just above, but is more layered with irony than much of his other work. This irony begins with his use of the subjunctive "might" in the title suggesting a lack of correspondence between the way the singer expects things to be and the way they are playing out. And, indeed, the title is an attempt at an explanation for the confusion that has insinuated itself into the singer's mood and behavior. If it were spring it would be understandable that "the things I used to like / I don't like anymore," / I want a lot of other things / I've never had before," as the singer puzzles in the verse. And furthermore, it is interesting to note, that this irony, which works so well, was not originally planned for the song but became a necessity when Hammerstein discovered, accidentally more or less, that state fairs take place in fall. This turns out to be an inconvenient truth because he can no longer set his poem in spring and easily retain his planned theme -- the confusion that overtakes young people in spring. Hammerstein resolved his problem quite unironically, but brilliantly, by simply having the singer state, given the way she feels, "it might as well be spring." Once he does this he is able to maintain all the ironic feelings Margie Frake is having, feelings that may be curious and disturbing but never cause us to doubt that her problems will work out in a spring-like fashion, even though it's fall.

When Rodgers' first writing partner, Lorenz Hart, wrote about the same season in "Spring is Here," his irony did not come about as a result of an accidental misunderstanding but was intended from the start as a comment on the ironies resident at the center of life, at least of his life. And there is no indication literal or otherwise that they will dissolve into a happy conclusion. The singer in Hammerstein's lyric cannot understand why she feels "as restless as a willow in a windstorm" and "as jumpy as a puppet on a string," emotional states common to "spring fever" when she knows it isn't spring. Hart's character is ions beyond Hammerstein's on the despair meter. Instead of being confused about feelings he would understand and might even like if it were spring, he feels betrayed by the fact that the whole idea of spring as a time when love is in the air is a sham. His verse states: "Now April, May and June / are sadly out of tune. / Life has stuck the pin in the balloon." In the refrainthings get worse as he discovers his own emptiness and writes, sounding a bit like Eliot, "No desire / No ambition leads me" -- though Hart's despair has an identifiable cause, an objective correlative as it were, "Maybe it's because / Nobody needs me." Spring is around with all of its usual attributes, and that should make his "heart go dancing." But it doesn't and all he can surmise is "Maybe it's because / Nobody loves me. / Spring is here, I hear!"

Hammerstein's irony reflects an irony informed by a confusion typical to the innocence of youth, Hart's by a resignation associated with the bitterness of experience.

It may be this difference that is largely responsible for the far greater number of Rodgers and Hart songs that have become standards along with the far greater number of Rodgers and Hammerstein shows that continue to be revived on stage and screen. People in cabaret settings (or alone with their music machines) are far more likely to be tolerant of, even hankering after, truth telling about emotional pain. People who buy tickets for musicals may be up for some jokey irony about life's tough moments but on the whole are paying for some good old-fashioned uplifting resolution. Hart's writing, in general, delivers the former, Hammerstein's the latter.
JAC

Click here to read the lyrics for "It Might As Well Be Spring," as sung by Jeanne Crain
(dubbed by Louanne Hogan) in State Fair.

Jane Monheit ( on the Main Stage above ) does not sing the verse of the song, but Jeanne Crain/Louanne Hogan (in the movie) does. It is in the verse that Hammerstein gives his character the motivation to think, "It might as well be spring" because she has a set of feelings more commonly associated with that season than with fall, the season during which she is singing; for example, "The things I used to like / I don't like anymore. / I want a lot of other things / I've never had before." Margy Frake (Jeanne Crain) is engaged to a local farmer who is less romantically inclined than Margy's father's prize boar; in fact, the young farmer himself is a champion bore. By the time Margy completes the refrain , of "It Might As Well Be Spring," it is clear to us and to her that she wants to be really in love "when it isn't even spring": "I keep wishing I were somewhere else, / Walking down a strange new street, / Hearing words that I have never heard / From a man I've yet to meet." How much more perfectly could Hammerstein have foreshadowed what will befall Margy at the fair, where she finds herself on a roller coaster ride with a fancy free journalist played by Dana Andrews. Amy Asch notes in her introduction to the song in The Complete Lyrics that Hammerstein came up with the idea of writing a song about Margy's predicament by having the story set in spring to coincide with her spring-like feelings but was very distressed when he learned that all state fairs take place in the autumn -- thus not fitting the seasonal correspondence he had in mind. He compensated by making an adjustment: "Then I thought," he told an interviewer in 1956, "well maybe she just feels this way, although it is fall," which led to his theme and title, "It Might As Well Be Spring." Hammerstein went on, "Then I wasn't quite sure about it and I told Dick [Rodgers] the title, and he said, "That's great," and that gave me the courage to go ahead with it (Asch, p. 320). The twist on the season enriches the song significantly by adding a layer of irony and human complexity to what might otherwise have been not much more than a beautiful piece of fluff. The portion of the lyric heard in the video clip and linked lyrics above includes the verse and the refrain but does not includes a variation on the refrain sung by Margy a little later in the film while she is daydreaming about a new and more exciting life: I keep wishing I were somewhere else, Walking down a strange new street, Hearing words that I have never heard From a man I've yet to meet. He would be a kind of handsome combination Of Ronald Coleman, Charles Boyer, and Bing. This variation is immediately followed on the soundtrack by the disembodied voices of Coleman, Boyer and Crosby. The first two speak to flatter Margy with pledges of excitement and romance. Bing sings a bit of the actual lyric followed by some characteristic Crosby scat : And we feel so gay In a melancholy way That it might as well be spring, Boo-boo boo-boo Ya-da da_dee.

• Jane Monheit: romasenatus
• Jeanne Crain: cendrillon325
• "It's a Grand Night for Singing": JoshuaH688
• Doris Day and Les Brown: sampodmike
• Dick Haymes (1945) : MrJohnnyNumbers
• Clifford Brown: MINICQQPER
• Getz-Gilberto: luansk88

• Rodgers and Hart: Wikipedia Commons
  
• Oscar Hammerstein II: Wikipedia Commons

Notes

• "It Might As Well Be Spring" on the charts:
• Dick Haymes : first charted Nov. 17, 1945, remained on charts for 12 weeks peaking at #5.
• Paul Weston : first charted Oct. 27, 1945, remained on charts for 11 weeks peaking at #6.
• Sammy Kaye : first charted Dec. 15, 1945, remained on charts for 10 weeks peaking at #4.
• Source: Joel Whitburn, Pop Memories 1890-1954: The History of American Popular Music , 198 6
• Richard Rodgers, Musical Stages: An Autobiography New York: Random House, 1975 (Da Capo paper bound ed., 2002, pictured above).
• Other songs written for the movie State Fair currently included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook :
• 1. That's for Me
• For a complete listing of songs used in the movie State Fair, see IMDB soundtrack .
• About the Movie and Introduction of the Song
• "It Might As Well Be Spring" from State Fair Jeanne Crain (dubbed by Louanne Hogan)
• Visit the Lyrics Lounge below for further comment on the lyric contained in the clip above .
• Dick Haymes, Vivian Blaine and ensemble perform "It's a Grand Night For Singing" in State Fair .
• Web Resources : State Fair at IMDB , and Amazon
• William Zinsser, Easy to Remember The Great American Songwriters and Their Songs . Jaffrey, New Hampshire: David R. Godine, 2001.
• Rodgers and Hart (c. 1936)
• Oscar Hammerstein II (1946)
• Hammerstein and Hart: An Accidental Ironist and an Intentional one.
• The complete, authoritative lyrics for "It Might As Well Be Spring'" can be found in:
• Amy Asch (Ed.). The Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II . New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 2008.

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