The 10 Greatest Spring Songs
Timeline Cleanse
O Spring!
O child of many winds! As suddenly
Thou comest as the memory of a dream
Which now is sad because it hath been sweet
- Shelley, Prometheus Unbound
Today is the official start of spring, according to a Google search, and it certainly feels like it when one is ‘out and about’.
Hence, I present The 10 Greatest Spring Songs, which cleverly combines my greatest songs series and my new Timeline Cleanse series, where we take a break from the political hellscape.
10. Grumpus - Lambchop
I begin with a relatively obscure and understated choice from Lambchop’s critically acclaimed Nixon album (2000). It counts as a spring song mainly because of the lyric ‘another spring will come’. For me, it evokes reading classic American literature at university in my strangely large bedroom, with an old sofa and sun streaming in. And that actually makes sense, because Lambchop are a band largely associated with the alt-country genre, sometimes known as ‘Americana’. And what could be more Americana than taking a break from Melville’s lengthy description of the precise weight of a whale’s head to listen to this?
9. Astral Weeks - Van Morrison
Now we move into the stone-cold classics. I could have picked many tracks from the extraordinary Astral Weeks album for spring. But I have gone with the title track because it just feels like spring to me. Partly it’s the instrumentation, partly the lyrics (‘to be born again’), and partly that I first heard it at my ex-girlfriend’s house in springtime, in those wonderful early days when I was still attempting to be a person. ‘In another time, in another place’, indeed.
8. Springtime in New York - Jonathan Richman
A typically frank and charming depiction of spring from Mr Richman. I remember he played this when I saw him live in Islington many spring moons ago. The line about summers in New York being sticky got a good laugh. Of course it’s about the special appeal of New York, but it also takes me back to when London felt magical, before it was destroyed by immigration. Sorry, this is supposed to be an upbeat spring list!
7. Everbody’s Talkin’ - Fred Neil
This one always feels like spring arriving as the cold recedes (‘Backing off of the north east wind’). Technically it mentions summer, but feels more like spring to me. The Nilsson version is more well known, but I’ve gone with the original from Fred Neil.
6. That’s Heaven To Me - Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke has a serious claim to being the greatest singer of all time (outside of classical/opera). And with lyrics like ‘A little flower that blooms in May’, it is an undeniable spring classic. I insist it has to be this particular version, with its distinctive backing vocals, which is strangely hard to find. There’s also a very wholesome Christian message, as this is from those golden days before black American music became exclusively degenerate mumbling about drugs and murder.
5. Please Come to Boston - Ted Hawkins
‘Please come to Boston in the springtime’ sings busking legend Ted Hawkins, in what will hopefully be a treat for those who don’t know it. This is from The Unstoppable Ted Hawkins, a wonderful album recorded in London in 1988. It is a cover of a song by Dave Loggins, but Hawkins adds his own touching verse about Hampstead at the end. An uncompromising drifter, he is what wanky music execs back in the day would have called ‘authentic’. He never knew his father and his mother was a prostitute. Does it get any better?
4. The Thoughts of Mary Jane - Nick Drake
There are so many Nick Drake songs one could choose for spring. A mysterious and very English genius, his work sounds as fresh today as ever. Indeed, as fresh as spring itself. I’ve gone with this for the lyrics about going out in the rain, and the general spring feel conveyed by the music, particularly the flute.
3. April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel
I originally chose ‘The Only Living Boy in New York’ because it feels like spring to me, and I wouldn’t object to its inclusion here. But it felt a bit perverse not to include a track with April in the title, even though the lyrics are almost too wistful for spring. But it still works. Simon wrote it while in England. We clearly have the best and most inspiring seasons in the world.
2. Little Green - Joni Mitchell
I suppose technically the child Joni is describing here would be born in summer, based on her star sign. But with the lyrics ‘Just a little green, like the colour when the spring is born’, this is clearly a spring song. And it is a classic. I was, however, disturbed to learn that it is about a child Mitchell actually gave up for adoption. In her interviews she doesn’t even sound that bothered about it, which I put down to that strange 60s mentality where questionable morals were the norm. I suppose it is a blessing that she as least had the child, rather than the grim alternative that is pushed on so many potential mothers today. And she eventually got to know her daughter, so that is something.
1. If You See Her, Say Hello - Bob Dylan
The lyric ‘She left here last early spring’ means this song qualifies. But, hipster that I am, I insist it must be this version, from Volume Three of the Bootleg Series. For me it is far superior to the album version, and captures a strange magic and pathos Dylan achieves quite frequently in these demos. Comparing it to the final version, from the admittedly seminal Blood on the Tracks, one finds this rough version has better lyrics, a more appropriate time signature, and is just better in every way.
Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she's passing back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time
What an absolute spring banger.
Bonus Track: Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring - The Beach Boys
We couldn’t have a spring song list without including the greatest musical group of all time. I have added this as a bonus track, which is how it often appears on various Beach Boys albums. It is originally by Bobby Troup, though of course Brian Wilson took the vocal arrangement from The Four Freshmen.
Those are my choices. Hope you enjoy them. As ever, I have put my heart and soul and a lifetime of musical obsession into this. Thus anyone commenting simply ‘No [insert song here]?’ will be blocked.
Happy Spring,
Nick