Spring Is Here With A Strawberry In The Mouth
It’s the first day of spring today and the flowers are finally beginning to blossom again. Although winter felt long and cold, we are ready to ring in the new season's colors with tracks that serve as both a final send-off to winter and a welcoming of springtime sweetness.
“Last Goodbye” by Jeff Buckley
While the beginning of spring can be a time for arrival, it also insinuates an end of what once was––of Winter closure. “Last Goodbye” from his debut album Grace swells with emotional turmoil and palpable heartache. The 1994 studio album was Buckley’s only release in his short lifetime, gracing the music scene with a lasting legacy that leaves us marked with a “what if?” “Well this is our last embrace / Must I dream and always see your face?” Buckley croons over crunchy chords, grasping at a relationship that has already melted away. It’s a reflective track meant to be listened to with the moon hanging in the air, and a wave of farewell to the season behind us.
“Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth” by Caroline Polachek
It wouldn’t be a proper spring ring in without the infamous Caroline Polachek track, which is actually a cover. “Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In the Mouth” was initially released in 1986 by Operating Theater and composed by group member Roger Doyle. Originally birthed from synth patterns and shiny bass lines, it’s a theatrical track that grew into a life of its own throughout the years, ultimately landing a cover slot in Polacheck’s album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. Her rendition brings grandiosity to the feeling of sweetness in the coming of spring, and the love that awaits us on the other side. Where Spring flowers bloom, you’ll also find the budding of the yearning season and ink-stained fingers from the love letters that are left on our study. Will the first day of Spring be the day you send them out?
“Tjugonde” by Amazon
Like the break of dawn, the beginning of spring often feels like a glimpse into the warmth of the summer that is to come. While not fully there yet, the season’s fresh air invites people back outside from a period of snowstorms and chilling winds for neighborhood walks, picnics in the park, and frolicking in flower beds. “Tjugonde,” taken from Swedish-indie singer Amason’s album Flygplatsen, illustrates the essence of spring’s first blooms, with its lyrics describing a carefree day in Sweden where the sun blankets the city and its people are out of their homes.
“April Come She Will” by Simon & Garfunkel
“April come she will / When streams are ripe and swelled with rain,” the folk-rock duo floats in with its opening line, gently grazing its listeners with a breeze of arrival. There is an intimacy with just Simon and Garfunkel’s soft-picking and humming vocals as the song grasps the idea of life’s fleeting nature and the circularity of love and loss. Where winter ends, spring makes way for Summer and Autumn, where “The autumn winds blow chilly and cold / September I’ll remember / A love once new has now grown old.”
“In The Morning I’ll Be Better” by Tennis
I’m convinced that Tennis, consisting of husband and wife duo Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley, infuse their music with some sort of magical spell. Each track they release sweeps you off of your feet with entrancing vocals from Moore and foot-tapping instrumentals executed harmoniously by Riley. In “In The Morning I’ll Be Better” off of their album Yours Conditionally carries a twinkling essence that is reminiscent of skipping in springtime air. Where Moore writes about consoling her husband during a tough season in lyrics like “I’ll wrap my arms around you / Where you can’t be found,” we’re reminded of how the bee-sustaining sweet pollen from spring’s blooming flowers comes to us in our own form––through the people around us who keep us going when we are down.
