Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

It’s that time of year again… when things, according to “Ockie”, are bustin’ out all over. It’s June, and this month we are taking a look at the use of June in the musical theatre oeuvre.

We’ll begin with CAROUSEL and the robust Act One number where “Nettie Fowler” and the locals loudly celebrate the arrival of the sixth month of the year, leaping and jumping and harmoniously proclaiming the joys of June in New England. Here are those lyrics, penned by Oscar Hammerstein II and set to the rousing music of Richard Rodgers:

Nettie
March went out like a lion
Awakin' up the water in the bay;
Then April cried and stepped aside,
And along came pretty little May!
May was full of promises
But she didn't keep 'em quickly enough for some
And the crowd of doubtin' Thomas’s
Was predictin' that the summer'd never come

Men
But it's comin' by dawn,
We can feel it come,
You can feel it in your heart
You can see it in the ground

Girls
You can see it in the trees
You can smell it in the breeze

All
Look around! Look around! Look around!

Nettie
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
Hev been huggin' the bejeepers
Outa all the mornin' glories on the fence!
Because it's June...

All
June, June, June
Just because it's June, June, June!

Nettie
Fresh and alive and gay and young
June is a love song, sweetly song

All
June is bustin' out all over!
The saplin's are bustin' out with sap!
Love he's found my brother, Junior,
And my sister's even loonier!
And my Ma is gettin' kittenish with Pap!
June in bustin' out all over

Nettie
To ladies the men are payin' court.
Lotsa ships are kept at anchor
Jest because the captains hanker
Fer the comfort they ken only get in port!

All
Because it's June... June, June, June
Just because it's June, June, June!

Nettie
June makes the bay look bright and new
Sails gleamin' bright on sunlit blue

All
June is bustin' out all over
The ocean is full of Jacks and Jills,
With her little tail a-swishing'
Ev'ry lady fish is wishin'
That a male would come
And grab 'er by the gills!

Nettie
June is bustin' out all over!
The sheep aren't sleepin' anymore!
All the rams that chase ewe-sheep
All determined there'll be new sheep
And the ewe-sheep aren't even keepin' score!

All
On accounta it's June! June, June, June
Just because it's June, June, June!

"June is Bustin' Out All Over" from the 1956 film CAROUSEL.

The word June has been used over and over in musical theater, in songs and characters. GYPSY prominently features the character Baby/Dainty June, based on the real life actress/playwright June Havoc, and several of the boys’ numbers use corny rhymes with June to sing about her.

The musical HAIRSPRAY takes place in June, 1962, when that Baltimore heat could do serious damage to a bouffant without a liberal application of the aforementioned hairspray.

In the Bernstein/Comden/Green musical ON THE TOWN young “Ivy Smith” has been crowned Miss Turnstiles for June, and sailor “Gabey” spends most of the show searching for her.

Stephen Sondheim himself played a songwriter in the 1974 TV play entitled JUNE MOON, based on the 1929 Tin Pan Alley comedy by Ring Lardner & George S. Kaufman.

The June/Moon/Croon/Spoon lyric scheme has been spoofed many, many times – most notably in the seldom seen 1978 film MOVIE/MOVIE in which wannabe songwriter Barry Bostwick rhymes these and other cliché lyric lines to prove that all he needs is the girl! To prove his point he does everything but swing from a trapeze to sell his song.

Composer/Lyricist Harold Rome referenced the June song stigma in his long running musical PINS & NEEDLES, featuring members of the ILGW union. Here’s the first example in the lyric to “Sing Me A Song Of Social Significance”:

I'm tired of moon-songs, of star and of June songs,
They simply make me nap
And ditties romantic drive me nearly frantic
I think they're all full of pap

History's making, nations are quaking
Why sing of stars above
For while we are waiting father time's creating
New things to be singing of

Sing me a song with social significance
All other tunes are taboo
I want a ditty with heat in it,
Appealing with feeling and meat in it!

Sing me a song with social significance
Or you can sing 'til you're blue
Let meaning shine from ev'ry line
Or I won't love you

Sing me of wars and sing me of breadlines
Tell me of front page news
Sing me of strikes and last minute headlines
Dress your observation in syncopation!

Sing me a song with social significance
There's nothing else that will do
It must get hot with what is what
Or I won't love you.

I want a song that's satirical
And putting the mere into miracle
It must be packed with social fact
or I won't love you

Sing me of kings and conf'rences martial
Tell me of mills and mines
Sing me of courts that aren't impartial
What's to be done with 'em tell me in rhythm

Sing me a song with social significance
there's nothing else that will do
It must be tense with common sense
Or I won't love you.

Another PINS & NEEDLES song entitled “What Good Is Love?” also pays reference to the June/Moon phenomenon. Here’s the lyric:

Everywhere I go
I hear sweet songs about the moon
Songs about the stars above
And songs of love and June
Songs of hearts that beat as one
To some sweet lovers tune
But they're not songs that sing for me
Songs about the dream that lies
Within a lover's eyes
Songs about the cloudless sky
And lover's paradise
Songs about the joys of love
And lovers lullabies
But there not songs that sing for me
What good is love?
If you have to face
Cold hungry days and sighing
What good is love?
If life's just a race
To keep your heart from crying
Let the poet sing of skies above
And endless love
And hearts that dance
Where is my chance?
For the call of romance
What good is love?
If you haven't got
All that makes life worth living
What good is love?
If you haven't got
Even a thing worth giving
You can keep your little songs
That sing of all the joy that love can bring
What good's romance?
What good is love to me?
You can keep your little songs.
That sing of all the joy that love can bring
What good's romance?
What good is love to me?

The 1965 Andrew Lloyd Webber/ Tim Rice musical THE LIKES OF US wasn’t produced until 2005, telling the story of philanthropist Thomas John Barnado, who helped rescue over 60.000 destitute children. Here’s a song from that show entitled “Love Is Here”, which features the June/Moon reference:

(Johnny)
I ain’t got no gifts to bring
This ain’t Paris it ain’t spring
No pearls for you to wear

(Jenny)
I wouldn’t mind a bit of that

(Johnny)
I don't have no shining moon
We're bloody miles from June
But you know love is here.

All them poets with their rhyme
Their pretty words in time
Are missing what’s so clear

(Jenny)
It doesn’t mean a thing to me

(Johnny)
Painters they have missed it to
Writers haven’t got a clue
They can’t see love is here

I could look forever
And I know I’d never
Find a better way to say
Things I feel so plainly
And what matters mainly is
I got you here today

You won’t get sweet words from me
No pretty poetry
To whisper is your ear
Kings and queens are just like me
But they got finery
My darlin’ love is here

The musicals of the 1920’s often featured the June/moon rhyme, but by then it had already started to seem cliché. Here’s the most famous song of that type, written for the 1928 Eddie Cantor musical WHOOPEE!, featuring music by Walter Donaldson and lyrics by Gus Kahn. Here’s the most famous song in the show, “Makin’ Whoopee”:

Another bride
Another June
Another sunny honeymoon
Another season, another reason
For makin' whoopee

A lot of shoes, a lot of rice
The groom is nervous. He answers twice
It’s so killin’ that he's so willin'
To make whoopee

Picture a little love nest
Down where the roses cling
Picture the same sweet love nest
Think what a year can bring

He's washing dishes and baby cloths
He's so ambitious he even sows
But don't forget folks that's what you get folks
For makin’ whoopee

Another year or maybe less
What's this I hear? Well you can't you guess
She feels neglected and he's suspected
Of makin' whoopee

She sits alone most every night
He doesn't phone her he doesn't write
He says he's busy but she says "is he?"
He's makin' whoopee

He doesn't make much money
Only five thousand per
Some judge who thinks he's funny
Says you'll pay six to her

He says now judge suppose I fail
The judge says budge right into jail
You better keep her I think it's cheaper
Then makin’ whoopee

You better keep her
I know it's cheaper than makin' whoopee

Diana Krall, Elvis Costello & Elton John sing "Makin' Whoopee" on the Sundance Channel series SPECTACLE

This business of rhyming June and Moon dates back to the earliest days of musical theater. We’ll close with one of my favorite moon/June lyrics, from 95 years ago. The 1915 musical VERY GOOD EDDIE, with a score by Jerome Kern and various lyricists, featured a song called “Moon Of Love”, where the mysteries of moons in June is questioned. Here’s that lyric:

[MME. Matroppo]
When the shades of twilight fall
Where the setting sun turns the west to amber rose,
Mister Moon comes stealing out when the day is done,
He likes watching sweethearts, I suppose.

Oh, moon of love high up above,
All that you see so well, I'm sure you will not tell
What sweethearts do who trust in you.
Away up there above, oh, shining moon of love,

Oh moon of love...
High up above...
All that you see...
So...
Well...
I'm sure you will...
Not...
Tell...
What sweethearts do...
Who trust in you...
Away up there...
A-....
bove...
Oh, shining moon...
Of...
Love.

[Men]
Oh what the deuce, do you suppose we care to hear
The silly stuff you have to spill about the moon?
Of course the moon is high above for everybody saw
The guy who hung it up this afternoon.
All the old stuff,
All the old bluff,
It's a hard game,
It's a darn shame.
That is why we
Stick to the equity
For every lyric writer since the world began
Has put in overtime in raves about the moon.
And when the animals descended from the Ark
They sang a song that rhymed with June
And tune and spoon.
It's a good thing
That we can't sing
Or we'd tell
You what the
Tired chorus boy
Thinks of the
Moon.