Eileen. Firemen’s Park. December 2015, Ocean Grove. Paul Goldfinger photo. Blogfinger.net
Soon the temperature will be in the 60’s here. Eileen is out with Chico, the Blogfinger mascot and assistant reporter. He can smell a story from afar.
KATE McGARRY. “It Might as Well be Spring.” (see comments) With the Jazz in Lincoln Center Orchestra.
Political correctness in music: In the song for this photograph we have Kate McGarry performing a Rodgers and Hammerstein II song called “It Might as Well Be Spring.” The song won the Oscar for the film “State Fair” (1945).
In the show, it is sung by a woman, and the lyric says, “..hearing words that I’ve never heard from a man I’ve yet to meet.” When Sinatra recorded the song, he changed man to woman. When Ella Fitzgerald recorded it, she said “man.”
But in this version, Kate McGarry says…”someone I’ve yet to meet.” Why would she change Oscar Hammerstein II’s words? It’s the only word that she changed.
It’s not uncommon for singers to change the music a bit, especially for jazz or even the words, but much less commonly. Sinatra was a stickler for getting the words just as written.
McGarry’s version is beautiful, and that is why we chose it, but that one word, makes a big difference to me as I get absorbed by her rendition. But she should have said “man” instead of “someone.” It is a love song after all, and Hammerstein did not write “someone.”