Spring Has Sprung: Soft Coversongs of Hope and Renewal

Tomorrow is the first day of Spring, and someone forgot to tell the sky.

In the morning, says the weatherman, the world will turn to slush. And if we are truly blessed, all our sins will be washed away.

Outside the snow sulks in great mounds where the plows have pushed it aside. Hard ice falls on three-inch shoots and tufts of new grass. We stay up late, and sit by the window together, and wait for the rains that do not come.

Send rain, O Lord. For it has been a hard Winter, and we are ready for Spring.

• Mary Chapin Carpenter, Spring & All (orig. Greg Brown)
  A beautiful, pensive portrait of rural loss and reclaimation from Going Driftless: an Artist's Tribute to Greg Brown; go get more Mary Chapin Carpenter here.
  
  
• Erin McKeown, They Say It's Spring (Clarke/Haymes)
  Sultry acoustic swing from Queen of Quiet Erin McKeown. From her album of classic american jazz and vaudville standards Sing You Sinners.
  
  
• Elizabeth Mitchell, Winter's Come and Gone (orig. Gillian Welch)
  
• Elizabeth Mitchell, Pom Na Tu Ri (Springtime Outing) (Korean folksong)
  Tiny, delicate Springsongs from You Are My Little Bird, one of our three most favorite albums from kidfolkie Elizabeth Mitchell.
  
  
• Cassandra Wilson, Waters of March (orig. Antonio Carlos Jobim)
  
• Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan, Waters of March (ibid.)
  Two vastly different interpretations of Jobim's now-standard Brazilian folktune: a sparse, acoustic take by Damien Rice and Lisa Hannigan off the Goldfish Memory soundtrack, and the spicy smooth jazzpop of Cassandra Wilson's Belly of the Sun.
  
  
• Ann Percival, Tide and the River Rising (orig. Cindy Kallet)
  
• Ann Percival, Green Grow the Rushes Oh (trad.)
  A pair of my favorite spring tunes from clear-voiced Contrafolk vocalist Ann Percival's sole solo album The Sweetest Hours.
  
  
• Greg Brown, Green Grows The Laurel (trad.)
  A bittersweet stand-out track from bullfrog-voiced Greg Brown's underrated collection of traditional folksongs Honey in the Lion's Head.
  
  
• Emmylou Harris w/ Ricky Skaggs and Dolly Parton, Green Pastures (trad.)
  Spring pastures as metaphor for Heaven. Great authentic countryfolk gospel from prolific coverartist Emmylou Harris' 1980 album Roses in the Snow, now available in remastered form.

Happy Spring, everyone. May the darkness turn, and the world turn green and alive for each of us.