One of the hidden pleasures of being a cyclist is singing as I ride. True, it’s possible to sing in my car, but the sound comes back at me instead of adding to the vibration of the universe. I can also sing when I walk, but I move so slow through space others hear me. When I sing out loud I do it for me. I don’t want others to hear and they’re gladly spared my noise. On my bicycle I can send the tune out from me and by the time someone else absorbs the sound, I’ve rolled on.
Bicycle singing inspires wonderful rhythmic alteration. Coming up behind a pedestrian, whose ears I respect, I take whatever note I’m on and extend it into a soft sostenuto. My passerby hears nothing but an eerie bit of breeze.
This year’s long winter and cool spring have done nothing to elevate the soul. I’ve been forced to dig deep into my repertoire to keep spirits high. March, New England’s signature grotesque month, requires I chortle through every upbeat 50’s musical while pedaling against the wind driving down the Charles River. I’ve never met a gale that could overcome Frank Loesser’s I Believe in You. April’s storms can always been humbled by the maxim April Showers bring May Flowers.
But it’s May 1, the temperature is stuck in the forties, the rain is hard, the wind from the northwest. The calendar displays it’s time for Camelot’s Merry Month of May, but there’s nary a sign of May about. I could go depressive with Karen Carpenter’s Rainy Days and Mondays, or emotionally pathological with When You Walk Through a Storm, but I’m, trying to keep things light and spring like in my head, my heart, and my voice.
Got any suggestions?
Forsythia blooms smothered in rain
The Awkward Pose 
Dare I suggest “Happy?!”
YES!!! I love that song!
That’s what I was going to suggest!
“When the Red Red Robin Comes Bop bop boppin Along” (the Louie Armstrong rendition is indelibly imprinted on my memory, and just hearing the song or singing the song cheers me up –
virtually NO MATTER WHAT)
“Many A New Day” from Oklahoma in which Laurie displays an optimism both absolute and impervious to dismay
verse: “I’ll scrub my neck, and I’ll brush my hair”
refrain: “asked an August sky, where has last July gone?”
“wept into my tea/wonderin’ where has some GUY Gone.”
then “Mr. Snow”: “the flowers will be buzzing with the hum of bees, the birds will make a racket in the churchyard trees” (really how can you not be delighted with this)
“Guys and Dolls” title song, by the aforementioned Loesser
I don’t know if you know this one but from Liza’s Bway debut (and the beginning of her K&E association):
“Sing Happy” in Flora, the Red Menace
“Mountain Greenery” by Rodgers & Hart
Yeah! Now I can sing 24/7! Just biked home and did an extensive My Fair Lady medley. Where do songs come form? I hadn’t sung that in years.
I consider MFL a springtime musical – the flowers and all those costumes implying pleasant but not warm weather