On That Note - (It's the) Time Of The Season

[MeanDean]

No, Shockingly, it's not another Zombies topic.

This week's On That Note is centered around the concept of SPRING which begins TODAY! Finally!

OTN is a weekly music-focused forum post from yours truly, @CycloneRulzzz, and @cyclones500. Last week's post, "3 Is A Magic Number" can be found here:

https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/threads/on-that-note-3-is-a-magic-number.246751/

This week we're looking for songs with Spring in the title and/or lyrics. In addition, songs with one or more of the months of Spring (March, April, May, June) are also acceptable. We debated whether to include songs with the word "spring" or the months used in other ways and decided, why not? So I expect several titles like March of the Wooden Soldiers or Maggie May might appear.

My first 5 are as follows.

1 It Might As Well Be Spring - Originally from the 1945 Movie State Fair, I am more familiar with the Andy Williams version from his 1962 album Moon River and other Great Movie Themes.




2 April Come She Will - Simon and Garfunkel From the 1966 Sounds of Silence LP. It also famously appeared in the 1967 Mike Nichols film, The Graduate.




3 Spring Fever - Written by Roy Orbison, I'm partial to this doo-wop version by the Velvets (1961).




4 First of May - Bee Gees. From their pre-disco pop/harmony initial fame period. In a way this initially seems like a Christmas song. At least I always thought so, anyway.




5 Springtime for Hitler and Germany - From the Mel Brooks movie/farce/musical The Producers.

 

[cyclones500]

 

[IsUaClone2]

Tulips come up in the spring so I bring you Tiny Tim and Tiptoe Through The Tulips!

 

[cyclones500]

Main lyrical reference is to emerging from winter, so I consider it a spring song

 

[cyclones500]

“You can crush the flowers / But you can't stop the spring”

 

[cyclones500]

5 Springtime for Hitler and Germany - From the Mel Brooks movie/farce/musical The Producers.

"Don't be dumb / be a smarty / come and join the Nazi Party!"

For audacity & satire, Brooks held nothing back in that movie.

 

[cyclones500]

3 Spring Fever - Written by Roy Orbison, I'm partial to this doo-wop version by the Velvets (1961).

That Velvets song "sounds" like spring to me. Good choice.

 

[cyclones500]

Tulips come up in the spring so I bring you Tiny Tim and Tiptoe Through The Tulips!

Tiny Tim is among early TV memories for me, can't remember what programs, maybe "Laugh-In" (?)

 

[drlove]

 

[Sigmapolis]

I always think this song is referring to Silver Spring, Maryland.



Stan Kenton (and his orchestra) is pretty much the best thing, ever.



The "Overworld Theme" from The Legend of Zelda stole its chords from this song...



...for those of you who like the mid-early proggy Deep Purple before they went hard rock.

 

[Sigmapolis]

April showers...





Eventually clear...





Jeff Lynne sounds so good.

And bring May flowers!

 

[Sigmapolis]

Maybe the all-time "you know this melody but could not name it" tune...



This used to TERRIFY me as a kid (and not just that *one* scene)...



It was remarkably controversial when it came out, too, which seems bizarre for a piece of classical music in 2019, but this article is fascinating to me...

https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/milestones/991110.motm.riteofspring.html

Almost no musical work has had such a powerful influence or evoked as much controversy as Igor Stravinsky's ballet score “The Rite of Spring”. The work's premiere on May 29, 1913, at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, was scandalous. In addition to the outrageous costumes, unusual choreography and bizarre story of pagan sacrifice (note from Sigmapolis -- like many ballets, the plot is kind of thin, but it involves a pre-modern, pagan, Russian society sacrificing a young woman to ensure a bountiful year, who is then "executed" by dancing herself to death), Stravinsky's musical innovations tested the patience of the audience to the fullest.

Harvard University professor Thomas Kelly suggests that one of the reasons that the Paris premiere of "The Rite of Spring" created such a furor was that it shattered everyone's expectations.

The music itself was angular, dissonant and totally unpredictable. In the introduction, Stravinksy called for a bassoon to play higher in its range than anyone else had ever done. In fact, the instrument was virtually unrecognizable as a bassoon (I actually thought it was an oboe for years, amazing). When the curtain rose and the dancing began, there appeared a musical theme without a melody, only a loud, pulsating, dissonant chord with jarring, irregular accents. The audience responded to the ballet with such a din of hisses and catcalls that the performers could barely hear each other.

Backstage at the premiere, Nijinsky shouted at the dancers while Diaghilev tried to suppress a possible riot by flashing the house lights. Stravinsky himself fumed at the audience's response to his music. If nothing else, the ballet's premiere managed to instill in the audience the true spirit of the music. As Thomas Kelly states, "The pagans on-stage made pagans of the audience."

I know most posters on here are fans of pop and rock since roughly 1960, but the spirit of experimentation and innovation we have in music in the second half of the Twentieth Century definitely traces itself back to European composers like Stravinsky.

 

[MeanDean]

As the June light turns to Moonlight, I'll be on my way

 

[MeanDean]

Spring little Cobra...

 

[MeanDean]

May I - A lesser remembered late 60s hit.

 

[MeanDean]

Slightly off topic but I always assumed they 'borrowed' the theme from this one:

 

[IsUaClone2]

More seriously this always meant Spring to me and has been one of my favorite songs: Jane Morgan's version of The Day The Rains Came:

 

[Sigmapolis]

Slightly off topic but I always assumed they 'borrowed' the theme from this one:

I have always enjoyed the Mozart quote in "Listen to the Flower People" and the quote from "String Quintent in E maj, Op. 11, No. 5" by Luigi Boccherini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eine_kleine_Nachtmusik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quintet_in_E_major,_Op._11,_No._5_(Boccherini)

I wish we would have gotten to hear the song influenced by Mozart and Bach in D min, the saddest of all keys. I think the title was something like "Lick My Love Pump."

 

[cyclones500]

I have always enjoyed the Mozart quote in "Listen to the Flower People" and the quote from "String Quintent in E maj, Op. 11, No. 5" by Luigi Boccherini.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eine_kleine_Nachtmusik

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_Quintet_in_E_major,_Op._11,_No._5_(Boccherini)

I wish we would have gotten to hear the song influenced by Mozart and Bach in D min, the saddest of all keys. I think the title was something like "Lick My Love Pump."

It's like a "Mach" piece, really.

 

[cyhiphopp]