VOA慢速英语2014 Songs of Spring Describe Her Many Moods 关于春天的歌曲
时间：2018-12-16 作者：英语课 分类：2014年VOA慢速英语(四)月
Songs of Spring Describe Her Many Moods 关于春天的歌曲
From VOA Learning English, welcome to This Is America. I’m Steve Ember.
If you’ve checked your calendar lately, you know - at least in the northern part of the world – it’s spring. And, after a long winter, it’s time to celebrate.
Hey, buds below
Up is where to grow
Up, from which below can’t compare with…
Now, your English teacher might have had a problem with that phrase, but let’s keep listening, shall we?
Life down a hole takes an awful toll 1,
What with not a soul there to share with
If you’re wondering what those words are all about, she is singing to her flower pots.
Hurry, it’s lovely up here
Wake up, bestir yourself
It’s time that you disinter yourself…
Actress Barbara Harris in the musical “On a Clear Day, You Can See Forever” by Alan Jay Lerner and Burton Lane.
And what a gift package of showers, sun and love
You'll be met above everywhere with
Fondled and sniffed 2 by millions who drift by…
And spring being the season of new growth, I hope that song, and all the others we’re going to play for you, will paint a musical picture of this lovely season. Come along with us!
Open up and spread out!
Hurry, it's lovely here!
She sometimes is slow to arrive…
Sometimes spring comes slowly – that was certainly the case this year. It seems like we wear our winter clothes for a long, long time. The weather stays cold…snow stays on the ground. Trees still look bare. Everything is changing, but we may not see the changes from day to day.
And then suddenly, warmth seems to jump up from the earth overnight. Snow becomes a memory. Tree branches fill out. The gray and brown colors of winter give way to the green of spring. That’s the spirit expressed here by the New Christy Minstrels.
Springtime, change of scenery, won’t that be fine
Springtime, the grass is greener
And the berry grows redder on the vine
Into each life, there will come sunshine, sometime after the rain
Don’t be downhearted, before tears get started,
Let Springtime make you smile again.
You know that Springtime, change of scenery, won’t that be fine
Springtime, the grass is greener
And the berry grows redder on the vine.
Springtime, change of scenery…Spring is a wonderful season to celebrate rebirth and new life. The sun is out again, the daylight stays around longer…the flowers are blooming. The season represents hope, joy and beauty.
However, not all songs about spring are happy. This song by K.D. Lang is about dreaming of spring in cold dark places. She recorded "I Dream of Spring" in two thousand eight.
She arrives like autumn in a rainstorm
The threat of thunder above
I'll return from the streets of Melbourne
I'll return my love
This world is filled with frozen lovers
The sheets of their beds are frightfully cold
And I've slept there in the snow with others
Yet loved no others before
These cold dark places
Places I've been
In cold dark places
I dream of spring
Springtime inspires lasting 4 popular song…
Unlike the other seasons, there are not many rock songs about spring. Most of the songs about this season were written in the nineteen thirties and forties by famous American composers writing for the Broadway stage or Hollywood films or popular vocalists. The songs became "standards," popular songs recorded by many singers over the years.
If you’re a young person, this may surprise you, but this was the popular music of its day.
Have you ever had “Spring Fever?”
Here is one example, "It Might as Well Be Spring." Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein wrote the song for the movie "State Fair" in 1945. Frank Sinatra sings about having "spring fever." This is not a real sickness. It is a feeling of restlessness or excitement brought on by the coming of spring.
I'm as restless as a willow 5 in a windstorm,
I'm as jumpy as a puppet on a string,
I'd say that I had spring fever,
But I know it isn't spring.
I am starry 6 eyed and vaguely 7 discontented,
Like a nightingale without a song to sing.
Oh, why should I have spring fever,
When it isn't even spring?
I keep wishing I were somewhere else,
Walking down a strange new street,
Hearing words I have never heard,
From a girl I've yet to meet.
I'm as busy as a spider, spinning daydreams 8,
I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing,
I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud 9,
Or a robin 10 or a bluebird on the wing,
But I feel so gay in a melancholy 11 way,
That it might as well be spring,
It might as well be, might as well be,
It might as well be spring.
A sad side to Spring…
Richard Rodgers also wrote "Spring Is Here." But this time, the words were by lyricist Lorenz Hart. They were tender…but sad. The singer wants to feel happy in the new season, but can’t, because something very important in life…is missing. Ella Fitzgerald had one of the loveliest versions of this classic Rodgers and Hart song.
Once there was a thing called spring
When the world was writing verses like yours and mine.
All the lads and girls would sing
When we sat at little tables and drank May wine.
Now April May and June are sadly out of tune
Life has stuck the pin in the balloon.
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.
Spring is here…
New York has inspired so many wonderful – and timeless – songs, including those about the vibrant 12 city in the various seasons of the year. My favorite is Vernon Duke’s “Autumn in New York.” And if you’ll write a note on your calendar to join us in September when autumn arrives, we have a date to listen to it together. But, for now, here’s Tony Bennett.
Spring in Manhattan starts after dark
After a lazy afternoon in Central Park
Washington Square may be where you’ll feel her first warm touch
Down in the Village, you’ll find she may be much too much
Spring in Manhattan never stays long
Still, if you fall in love, she’ll bless you with a song
And if you listen to every word the song she’ll sing will bring
Spring in Manhattan to stay all winter long.
Just thinking about all the wonderful songs of New York, I realize we could actually do a program of New York songs. If you’d like to hear such a program on “This Is America,” be in touch – let us know!
Have an umbrella handy – After all, it’s Spring…
You know, we have a saying, “April showers bring May flowers.” And, of course, showers happen throughout springtime, and certainly do their part in bringing out the flowers and making the trees turn a beautiful shade of green.
Here is a very gentle song about those springtime showers, from the musical “The Fantasticks.”
Soon it's gonna rain.
I can see it.
Soon it's gonna rain.
I can tell.
Soon it's gonna rain.
What're we gonna do?
Soon it's gonna rain.
I can see it.
Soon it's gonna rain.
I can tell.
Soon it's gonna rain.
What'll we do with you?
We'll find four limbs of a tree.
We'll build four walls and a floor.
We'll bind 13 it over with leaves,
And run inside to stay.
Then we'll let it rain.
We'll not feel it.
Then we'll let it rain,
Rain pell-mell.
And we'll not complain
If it never stops at all.
We'll live and love
Within our own four walls.
Kenneth Nelson and Rita Gardner…“Soon It’s Gonna Rain” from Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt’s “The Fantasticks.”
When Spring comes late…
Frank Loesser wrote a sad song about spring - "Spring Will be a Little Late This Year." Why has the season been delayed? Because the singer's lover has left her. Sarah Vaughan released her version of the song in 1953.
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 of old?
You have left me, and winter continues cold
As if to say spring will be a little slow to start
A little slow reviving that music it made in my heart
Yes, time heals all things so I needn't cling to this fear
It's merely that spring will be a little late this year
Yes, time heals all things so I needn't cling to this fear
It's merely that spring will be a little late, a little late this year
Well, by now you may be thinking: "Enough with the sad songs, already!" OK, then how about a cowboy song? Gene 14 Autry was one of America's most famous singing cowboys. In 1937, he recorded "When It's Springtime in the Rockies."
When it's springtime in the Rockies
I'm coming back to you
Little sweetheart of the mountains
With your bonnie eyes of blue
Once again I'll say I love you
While the birds sing all the day
When it's springtime in the Rockies
In the Rockies far away
In most of the United States, spring is a warm and pleasant season. But this is not the case in the northwestern state of Alaska. According to Johnny Cash, it can be extremely cold.
I mushed from Point Barrow through a blizzard 15 of snow
Been out prospectin' for two years or so
Pulled into Fairbanks, the city was a-boom
So I took a little stroll to the Red Dog Sea-loon
When I walked in the door, the music was clear
Purtiest voice I had heard in two years
The song she was singin' would make a man's blood run cold
When it's Springtime in Alaska, it's forty below…
[From Frank Loesser’s “Where’s Charley?”]
‘Twas a bright blue sky, and the lark 16 sang high
On a bough 17 that was blossom laden 18
And I had my eye on a very pretty maiden…
“In the Spring,” Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote, “a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love." To that, I would simply add, you don’t have to be a young man…
We heard a sad song about spring by Frank Loesser earlier in the program. But Loesser captured a joyful 19 side of spring – and romance – when two lovers meet after many years…He wrote “Lovelier Than Ever” for his musical “Where’s Charley.” We’ll conclude our “This Is America” Songs of Spring program with Jerry Desmonde and Marion Grimaldi.
Springtime, you’re looking lovelier than ever
Lovelier than ever before
Still irresistible 20 in the same old gown of green
Still irresistible as that lilac-scented scene
When I was seventeen.
Springtime, you haven’t changed your way of whisp’ring
Whisp’ring that romance lies in store
Springtime, you’re being devastatingly 21 clever
And lovelier than ever before…
This Is America is a production of VOA Learning English. Steve Ember here. Hope you enjoyed the music. We’ll see you next week.
Springtime, you’re being devastatingly clever
And lovelier than ever before.
- The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
- The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。
- When Jenney had stopped crying she sniffed and dried her eyes. 珍妮停止了哭泣，吸了吸鼻子，擦干了眼泪。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- The dog sniffed suspiciously at the stranger. 狗疑惑地嗅着那个陌生人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
- Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。
- The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
- We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。
- The river was sparsely lined with willow trees.河边疏疏落落有几棵柳树。
- The willow's shadow falls on the lake.垂柳的影子倒映在湖面上。
- He looked at the starry heavens.他瞧着布满星星的天空。
- I like the starry winter sky.我喜欢这满天星斗的冬夜。
- He had talked vaguely of going to work abroad.他含糊其词地说了到国外工作的事。
- He looked vaguely before him with unseeing eyes.他迷迷糊糊的望着前面，对一切都视而不见。
- Often they gave themselves up to daydreams of escape. 他们常沉溺进这种逃避现实的白日梦。 来自英汉文学
- I would become disgusted with my futile daydreams. 我就讨厌自己那种虚无的梦想。 来自辞典例句
- At West Ham he was thought of as the rosebud that never properly flowered.在西汉姆他被认为是一个尚未开放的花蕾。
- Unlike the Rosebud salve,this stuff is actually worth the money.跟玫瑰花蕾膏不一样，这个更值的买。
- The robin is the messenger of spring.知更鸟是报春的使者。
- We knew spring was coming as we had seen a robin.我们看见了一只知更鸟，知道春天要到了。
- All at once he fell into a state of profound melancholy.他立即陷入无尽的忧思之中。
- He felt melancholy after he failed the exam.这次考试没通过，他感到很郁闷。
- He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
- She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。
- I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
- He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。
- A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
- The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。
- The blizzard struck while we were still on the mountain.我们还在山上的时候暴风雪就袭来了。
- You'll have to stay here until the blizzard blows itself off.你得等暴风雪停了再走。
- He thinks it cruel to confine a lark in a cage.他认为把云雀关在笼子里太残忍了。
- She lived in the village with her grandparents as cheerful as a lark.她同祖父母一起住在乡间非常快活。
- I rested my fishing rod against a pine bough.我把钓鱼竿靠在一棵松树的大树枝上。
- Every bough was swinging in the wind.每条树枝都在风里摇摆。
- He is laden with heavy responsibility.他肩负重任。
- Dragging the fully laden boat across the sand dunes was no mean feat.将满载货物的船拖过沙丘是一件了不起的事。
- She was joyful of her good result of the scientific experiments.她为自己的科学实验取得好成果而高兴。
- They were singing and dancing to celebrate this joyful occasion.他们唱着、跳着庆祝这令人欢乐的时刻。
- The wheel of history rolls forward with an irresistible force.历史车轮滚滚向前，势不可挡。
- She saw an irresistible skirt in the store window.她看见商店的橱窗里有一条叫人着迷的裙子。
- She was utterly feminine and devastatingly attractive in an unstudied way. 她温存无比，魅力四射而又绝不矫揉造作。
- I refuted him devastatingly from point to point. 我对他逐项痛加驳斥。