Spring Cleaning

It’s night time in the big city
You can smell rain in the air
I really gotta get those boxes out of the basement

The Singers and Songs

  • Betty Carter
    Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
    “Crazy man, crazy!”
  • Fats Domino
    Be My Guest
    “A lot of music historians point to this song and say it’s one of the big influences on ska… I listen to it and I can hear that, but even more important it’s just a great record.”
  • Memphis Minnie
    You Need A Friend
    “That was the smooth tongued Memphis Minnie, sleek and slick, rippleless, slyly loquacious and harsh and rugged as they come.”
  • Roy Orbison
    Crying
    “Here’s a classic, a nail bitin’ mini-drama, sung by…one of the sweetest, strongest voices in popular music.”
  • Cookie & The Cupcakes
    I Cried
  • Cry Baby
    “You can hear it in his voice, he started off as a gospel singer.”
  • Teardrops From My Eyes
    “Frankie Laine gave our next artist her nickname, Miss Rhythm”
  • Joe South
    Rose Garden
  • Igor Stravinsky
    Rite of Spring
    “The premier was scandalous. Never mind that the ballet was a bizarre story of pagan sacrifice, Stravinsky’s musical innovations tested the patience of the audience to the fullest. Stravinsky had a bassoon player play higher in range than anyone had ever done; it was unrecognizable as a bassoon. People walked out. When the curtain came up and the dancing began, a musical theme without a melody began. It was a loud pulsating and dissonant chord, with jarring irregular accents. The audience responded to the ballet with hisses and catcalls. Nowadays the Rite of Spring is recognized as a groundbreaking work. Igor Stravinsky: madman with a fountain pen.”
  • Elvis Costello
    Angels Want to Wear My Red Shoes
    “Let’s open up this closet and get rid of some of these shoes. We got a bunch of them left over from a few weeks ago, when we did our shoes show. I think this first pair is a size nine.”
  • Vernon Oxford
    Little Sister, Throw Your Red Shoes Away
    “…singin’ about the red shoes that tell everyone your business!”
  • Dust My Broom
    “Speaking of brooms, here we have Elmore James with a song that’ll drive you round the bend.”
  • Roy Milton
    Fools Are Getting Scarcer
  • The Main Ingredient
    Everybody Plays the Fool
  • Fats Waller
    Spring Cleaning (Getting Ready For Love)
  • Detroit City
  • Buck Owens
    Waitin’ In Your Welfare Line
  • Dinah Washington
    Richest Guy In The Graveyard
  • Skid Row Joe
    “Next up, a very sad song. A recitation, a sermon. A speechifyin’ testification…telling a tale of a sad man, down on his luck in the dirty part of town.”
  • Eric Dolphy – Spring Is Here
    Spring Is Here
  • I Ain’t Superstitious
  • George Jones
    Take The Devil Out of Me
    “Nothing less than a reinterpretation of one of the great myths.”
  • Springtime for Hitler
  • The Mississippi Sheiks
    Sales Tax
  • Faron Young
    Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young
  • Brother Drop Dead
    “Some people die too soon, others you’re kind of hopin.’ Tex Williams has a song for just such a situation.”
  • Buster Brown
    Fannie Mae
  • Rockpile
    Heart
  • Hank Williams
    Crazy Heart
    “A song of sadness born of desperation”
  • Put A Little Love in Your Heart
  • House Cleaning
  • Tom Waits
    You Can Never Hold Back Spring

The Other People and Players

  • Deep Purple
  • Randy Myers
  • Charles Dickens
  • The Pretenders
  • Irma Thomas
  • Willie Dixon
  • Phil Phillips
  • The Rolling Stones
    "Of course they took Irma's song "Time is on My Side" and had a little hit with THAT!" In reference to "Time is on My Side": "I've always been partial to Irma's version."
  • Elvis Presley
    "Cleaned up that naughty 'One Night' and hit big with it" “the swivel hipped rockabilly cat”

The Other Songs and Albums

The Poets

  • Edna St. Vincent Millay
  • Alfred Lord Tennyson
    “A poet with a spring in his step”
  • Stephen Crane
    “Crimson Poet”
  • T.S. Eliot

The Books and Poems

The Movies and TV Shows

The Places

  • MGM Studios
  • Smithsonian Museum
  • Hazel, KY
  • Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame
  • New York City
  • Lake Charles, LA
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • England

Record Labels

  • Aladdin Records
  • Atlantic Record

Radio Shows

  • Characters on the show:
    Mayor LaTrivia
    Doc Gamble
    Abigail Uppington
    Horatio K. Boomer
    Wallace Wimple
    Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve

Commercials and Public Service Announcements

  • Ajax Laundry Detergent Commercial
  • Johnson’s Wax Commercial