“June
Is Bustin’ Out All Over”
Oscar
Hammerstein II and Richard Rodgers, Carousel
/ 1945
Record
of the movie version, 1956/1958
Performer:
Chorus
Oscar
Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers’ 1945 musical Carousel, based on Hungarian writer
Ferenc Molnár's Liliom, is one of their very darkest works—although as I
have written elsewhere, there are dark currents stirring in many of their
musical operas. Carousel’s hero,
Billy Bigelow, although an appealing and handsome carousel barker at the
beginning of the work,
is ultimately a weak man who allows a friend to involve him in a robbery which
ends in Billy’s death. His poor widow, the former millworker Julie Jordon, is
left to raise their daughter alone, to the taunts of her former fellow worker Carrie
Pipperidge, who has married the far more successful Enoch Snow.
Accordingly, even the lovely ballads, such as “If I Loved You” at the very beginning of the musical, are still filled with longing and wishful thinking, most potently expressed in Billy’s long “Soliloquy” at the end of Act I as he imagines the possibilities of the new son or daughter that his wife is expecting. That song alone is enough to break any viewer’s heart, and it is the recognition that he will have to provide financial support for a daughter that leads to his downfall.
Yet, in the middle of that Act there is
one absolutely joyous moment when everyone in the community, so it seems, is
simply enjoying, after the hard Maine winter, the warmth and beauty of the
month of June.
After a wonderful introductory recounting
of the months just prior, the entire male ensemble prepare everyone for the new
miracle of June, almost trumpeting the new possibilities it represents:
[Nettie Fowler]
March
went out like a lion
A
whippin' up the water in the bay
Then
April cried and stepped aside
And
along come pretty little May!
May
was full of promises
But
she didn't keep 'em quickly enough for some
And
a crowd of doubtin' Thomases
Was
predictin' that the summer'd never come
[Male
Ensemble]
But
it's comin, by gum
We
can feel it come
You
can feel it in your heart
You
can see it in the ground
[Female
Ensemble]
You
can see it in the trees
You
can smell it in the breeze
[Whole
Ensemble]
Look
around! Look around! Look around!
And suddenly, everyone joins in what might
almost be described as a ritualistic and slightly raucous prayer to the summer
sun:
[Nettie
Fowler]
June
is bustin' out all over
All
over the meadow and the hill
Buds're
bustin' outa bushes
And
the rompin' river pushes
Ev'ry
little wheel that wheels beside the mill
June
is bustin' out all over
The
feelin' is gettin' so intense
That
the young Virginia creepers
Have
been huggin' the bejeepers
Outta
all the mornin' glories on the fence!
Because
it's June!
[Ensemble
+ Nettie Fowler]
June,
June, June
Just
because it's June, June, June!
Dance
is a large part of this ritual, and by the time the piece closes, the audience
itself might wish to rush on stage to join in on the great Agnes de Mille’s
lovely chorography. In the midst of so much darkness, the simple joy of this
song demonstrates the true pleasures of the Maine fishing community which
suffers so much to arrive at this moment each year.
Hammerstein’s lyrics here represent some
of the best in a long career of making nature part of the human landscape. The
very idea of Virginia Creepers “huggin’ the bejeepers” out of the Morning
Glories is nothing less than brilliant. Along with Oklahoma!’s corn grown high as an “elephant’s eye,” the lyricist
forces us to see the natural world in the way that its simple characters do, as
an anthropomorphic being in total animation.
Los Angeles,
August 27, 2017
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