‘It Might As Well Be Spring’ from State Fair (1945)

Image from en.kinorium.com

2024 is here! And it’s cold. Cold, very bitterly cold. January – March is just torture where I live, so naturally, I keep thinking, Spring can’t get here soon enough! I love Spring, and I can’t stand Winter. And London in April/May is absolutely divine.

So then I thought ‘Spring.. spring… it might as well be spring.’

Here’s State Fair (1945).

Adapted from the 1933 film of the same name, based on the 1932 novel by Phil Stong, State Fair (dir. Walter Lang) is the ONLY Rodgers and Hammerstein musical written directly for the screen, which makes all of its songs eligible for the Oscar for Best Original Song, which they won for ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’.

Reporter Pat Gilbert (Dana Andrews) is covering the annual Iowa State Fair, while farm girl Margy Frake (Jeanne Crane) will be attending the fair with her family. The two of them meet and fall in love, which is the starting point for one of THE absolute loveliest movies I’ve ever seen.

But before of all that, Margy is packing for the fair, beautifully melancholic as she sings ‘It Might As Well Be Spring’. Throughout the song, she sits on the window sill singing about how despondent she is. She’s bored with her life, she’s sick of her routine (‘I’m as restless as a willow in a wind storm’), and she can’t wait for the fair to get here. Everything about the song works. The lyrics, the melody, the longing… Not to mention that Jeanne Crain’s perfect-for-Technicolor face really drives the point home, as she stares into the distance, wistfully singing away one of the most beautiful songs in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s back catalogue.