Rodgers and Hart
Authority control databases
| "Spring Is Here" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| Published | 1938 |
| Songwriter(s) | Lorenz Hart |
| Composer(s) | Richard Rodgers |
"Spring is Here" is a 1938 popular song composed by Richard Rodgers, with lyrics by Lorenz Hart for the musical I Married an Angel (1938), where it was introduced by Dennis King and Vivienne Segal.
Rodgers and Hart had previously written a song entitled "Spring is Here in Person," which served as the title song for a 1929 Broadway production (filmed in 1930 - see Spring is Here (film)).
| Gerald Nachman on Spring is Here |
|---|
| Typical of Hart at his most moody but perceptive is "Spring Is Here," a love song about love's absence. Hart specialized in regret His words assume a musing mood that questions the promised springtime romance of banal ballads, Hart's glum verse contradicting Rodgers' lush melody: Spring is here! Why doesn't my heart go dancing?/ Spring is here! Why isn't the waltz entrancing?/ Spring is here! Why doesn't the breeze delight me?/ Stars appear! Why doesn't the night invite me? His last plaintive line: Spring is here, I hear is one of the most perfect couplets in all of song, summing up an attitude in a fragile, forlorn pun. This is Larry Hart at his best setting love on its ear in a deft delicate, bemused, achingly honest & Hart-felt touch.[1] |
Theatrical producer Josh Logan, a longtime associate of Rodgers & Hart, would opine that "the most touching [of Hart's lyrics] are those about unrequited love [with the 1938 song] 'Spring is Here' [being] one of the greatest examples".[2] Hart had had a romantic interest in I Married an Angel leading lady Vivienne Segal who turned down more than one marriage proposal from him. Logan believed that Hart's lyrics for "Spring is Here" evoked the composer's disappointment over Segal's failure to reciprocate his interest.[2]
