Spring Into Eclecticism

Mid-march always seems a bizarre period to me. Ignoring the “March is Hell” mantra which I’ve carried for over a decade, when I lived back in the frozen tundra of Michigan, March represented a time when you knew spring approached, but winter still gripped you in its icy clutches. It just taunted you by releasing its grasp a little from time to time, only to yank you back into the below-freezing, ice-laden hell you’d lived in since November-ish. Now I live in a much more temperate climate with basically three seasons: cool(ish), rainy, and HOT… and rainy and cool don’t last long. Yesterday morning the classical station DJ commented that we’re now in the period where we likely won’t see below seventy degrees during the day until November or December. Yet I find that emotionally this time of year still holds some residual effects of near-Springs past, especially in regards to my musical leanings. I find it difficult to give into peppy pop tunes without balancing them with the more morose, slow dirge-like tunes of the winter. Just as the flowers, even here, aren’t all ready to bloom, I’m not ready to emerge from my emotional cocoon and embrace the warmer weather with happier music… and yet I can’t quite resist the siren call of approaching spring.
Thus I give you a sampling of the tunes which have thus far occupied my March:

Jason Walker – Down
Sara Bareilles – Breathe Again
Tony Lucca – Always
Loreena McKennitt – Brian Boru’s March
Michael Bublé – Hollywood
Tony Lucca – Like Love
Darren Criss & Lea Michele – Don’t You Want Me (yes, Darren… yes I do…)
Eliza Doolittle – Missing (kitschy name aside, any spunky little Brit who samples “Come Softly to Me” gets major bonus points)
Plumb – Cut
Imelda May – Love Tattoo
Sky Ferreira – Obsession
Hanson - Give a Little
Digital Daggers – Head Over Heels
Ernie Halter – Black Coffee in Bed