"Spring Is Here" was composed by Richard Rodgers with lyrics by Lorenz Hart in 1938 for the Broadway musical I Married an Angel. The show had a circuitous path to the stage: Rodgers and Hart first adapted the source material, a 1932 Hungarian play by Janos Vaszary, for a planned MGM film that was shelved as too risque before the rights were eventually released for a stage production. Introduced by Dennis King and Vivienne Segal, the song is a melancholic ballad that subverts its springtime setting, using the arrival of the season to underscore feelings of loneliness and unrequited love. Hart's lyrics, considered among his finest, build to the closing irony of the repeated phrase "spring is here" delivered not as celebration but as quiet resignation. The melody features a striking passage of ten consecutive ascending notes on the words "maybe it's because nobody loves me," followed by an abrupt drop that intensifies the emotional impact. Critic Alec Wilder described the result as a "shattering ballad," and the song has been recognized as a signature example of the Rodgers and Hart partnership's ability to blend melodic surprise with psychological depth. It should not be confused with the unrelated 1929 title song from the show Spring Is Here. Leo Reisman's original 1938 recording charted at number fourteen, and the song has since become a standard performed widely in jazz and cabaret settings, with notable recordings by Frank Sinatra, Stan Getz, and others.
