I love music and I cannot go a day without it. I can always find the time to listen to it. Usually, my playlists revolve around my regular hyper-fixation at that point in time; and lately I’ve been currently going through a musical theatre obsession. But there comes a time at the beginning of every season where I notice my music tastes change just a little. For the first week or so, I listen to songs that make me feel like the season I am living in. By doing so, it establishes a good start to the season and helps me romanticize the season before I’m fully living in it.
Spring is my second favourite season after autumn, and I’m always excited for it more than any other season. The winter season has never been as bad as it could be, but I can’t wait to escape the cold and bask in the warm and rainy season of spring. My favourite parts are the flowers that bloom, being in tulip gardens, and seeing the cherry blossoms remind me how beautiful life can be. As a student, the winter semester ends in mid-spring, which makes me think of spring for relaxation and calming down after working so hard to stay motivated. Luckily, I don’t have to take summer classes, so after the semester is over, I don’t have to be stressed anymore.Â
I find that there are so many songs that relate back to the summer or winter, which I understand, since those seasons tend to bring out very intense emotions from me, but I believe spring and autumn are often forgotten. Here are a few songs that I feel spring has some claim over.
- “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles
Whenever I hear this song, I instantly start smiling because it’s so comforting and upbeat, it helps get me into a positive mood, if I wasn’t already. It is the first song that I think of when I think about spring even though I haven’t listened to it in full recently. To me, it’s the quintessential song when expressing love and excitement for spring, capturing everything that I feel about spring, and I wish there were more in the world like it.Â
- “Milhouse” by Maisie Peters from the Trying: Season 2 (Apple TV+ Original Series Soundtrack)
Every time I listen to this song, I’m in high spirits. It does not have much to do with spring itself, but to me, the music makes it sound like something is blooming in the background and feels like I’m going for a morning walk in the park. The lyrics are so positive, hopeful, and reassuring for the future that it makes me excited for a good spring season (or any season).
- Any Song off the English Rain album by Gabrielle Aplin
Gabrielle Aplin first came into my music playlists a few years ago, and I found her voice so relaxing and her music was relatable. I love that her accent comes out a little when she sings. Every now and then, I go back to English Rain. For me, it’s a non-skip album. My favourites are “How Do You Feel Today?” and “Home”, neither of which are necessarily based on the season of spring itself and can be applicable to any time or season, but these songs were the songs I listened to the most during the spring season, so now I associate them with spring.
If anything, I would say her whole English Rain album exudes the lighter feelings I associate with spring. The music, lyrics, and her voice are too gentle and warm for it to match the heat of summer, cooling of autumn, or a frostbitten winter.
- “Wash.” by Bon Iver
To me, Bon Iver’s music is something equivalent to taking a long nap I didn’t know I needed. It’s relaxing and calming, and while it can be quiet at times, the music builds up to be beautiful. I’m often too distracted by the music to listen to what the lyrics are—this is not usually the case—though I am sure the lyrics are important in their own right. In “Wash.”, the music is all I can focus on. There’s a soft continuous rising and falling, it almost feels like the song is a deep breath with me, as if the whole point of it is to keep the listener calm. I love listening to it in the spring to establish that sense and feeling of tranquility and peace.
I’ve always appreciated spring and I believe it deserves a lot more love and attention than it receives because of everything that comes with it. Maybe there needs to be more songs that capture spring’s essence, so that people can look at it differently; but these are the songs that will always be attached to what I believe spring is like, and maybe one day, someone else will see it too.