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Thursday, April 24, 2008
SOME OTHER SPRING
Billie Holiday
1939
Available on : Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia
Sony : 2001
[Buy It]
SPRING IS HERE
Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely
Capitol : 1958
[Buy It]
SPRING WILL BE A LITTLE LATE THIS YEAR
Sarah Vaughan
Sarah Vaughan in Hi-Fi
Sony : 1949
[Buy It]
APRIL IN MY HEART
Billie Holiday
1938
Available on : Lady Day: The Complete Billie Holiday on Columbia
Sony : 2001
[Buy It]
A friend of mine called and left a message. I was having coffee with another friend, and I called her back when I was done. "Hi," I said.
"Yeah," she said. "I guess."
"Nice weather," I said. I hadn't meant to say anything about the weather. This friend and I are well beyond small talk, and she had other matters on her mind: she was going through a breakup, maybe, or steeling herself to head back into a relationship that had given her more misery than happiness over the past few years. But the sun was bright and the air was clear and there was actually a bird chirping in the tree just over my head. I didn't look up, but I wouldn't have been surprised if it was a cartoon bluebird.
She sighed. "It seems nice," She sighed again. As it turned out, it wasn't that she didn't want to talk about the weather. It was that she wanted to talk about the weather as a villain. "The weather only makes it worse," she said. "It's like the world is mocking me."
I laughed. That seemed like a preposterous thing to say. On the other hand, when I turned the corner, there was a firework of brilliantly colored flowers in someone's front yard and a little boy chasing a dog on the other side of the street. A minute later, a convertible sped by, driven by a man in his forties, I'd guess, who had a young woman beside him. I didn't mention the flowers or the boy or the man in the convertible. The woman was beautiful, which I didn't mention either.
We spoke for a few minutes. She asked me to call her back when I was home. "It's too noisy outside," she said.
"Okay," I said. When I hung up, I didn't put my headphones back in, which is what normally would have happened. Instead, I listened to the day. It wasn't noisy at all, though the people sitting on stoops and leaning against fences were smiling audibly. Maybe that's what was she was hearing. The convertible had parked on the next block. The man and the woman were still sitting in the car. His hand was on her thigh, inching upward. They were laughing.
When I got home, I called her back. She wasn't home. While I waited for her to return the call, I went to find some songs about the nice weather, and I discovered that the vast majority of songwriters agree with my friend. More often than not, the American songbook sees spring as a cruel trick perpetrated on sad people. The older the songs get, the more certain they are of this theory. Billie Holliday's "Some Other Spring," written by Irene Kitchings and Arthur Herzog, Jr., is the best of the bunch, and one of the most direct:Sunshine's around me
But deep in my heart
It's cold as ice
Love, once you found me
But can that story
Unfold twice? Spring's deceit--or at the very least the oppressive nature of nature during the season of rebirth and beauty--is also the subject of "Spring is Here," a Rodgers/Hart composition that has been recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and others. Frank Sinatra's version appears on "Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely," whose bleakness begins with its title and rarely lets up: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. Neither Billie Holiday nor Frank Sinatra would have been happy to see the guy in the convertible. Sinatra might have snapped off one of the car's side mirrors and beaten the guy with it. Slightly more optimistic is "Spring Will Be a Little Late This Year," Frank Loesser's song, which here is sung by Sarah Vaughan and holds out hope that internal happiness is merely lagging behind the weather:Spring will be a little late this year
A little late arriving, in my lonely world over here
For you have left me and where is our April love old
Yes you have left me and winter continues cold
As if to say that spring will be a little slow to start
A little slow reviving that music it made in my heart My friend hadn't called back. I looked out the window and wondered if there was any visible difference between a sunny window in April and a sunny window in September. If trees were in view, you could tell time by their leaves. If people were in view, you could guess the month based on their clothes. But what about their faces? There was one older woman in a heavy sweater, beaming; she would have been in spring even in September, or November. That's the argument of Billie Holiday's "April in My Heart," which is a precise counterweight to "Some Other Spring" and all the rest of the false spring lyrics:There's snowflakes in the sky
And geese are flying high
But it's April in my heart again
The devil got his due
Love's holiday is through
Love and I have made a happy start again
Through leaves lie on the ground
The world just turned around
It isn't fall at all you see
It's spring that I have found
There's frost in Central Park
At five it's almost dark
What's the difference
When you've heard love's sweet amen
There's snowflakes in the sky
And geese are flying high
But there's April in my heart again The phone rang. My friend was calling. I picked up. "Hi," I said.
"Hi," she said. "Took a walk. Feel better."
"Really?" I said.
"Yep," she said. "Though it could fade any second. I'm going to get off the phone and sit outside while I can still bear it."
We hung up. About ten minutes later, the sky darkened and it started to rain. I didn't call my friend to see if she was sitting outside in the rain. I'm guessing it pleased her, in some small way.Labels: ben
posted by Ben
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