Yours truly has been getting a workout donning and removing layers according to the whims of the sun, clouds and wind. It’s been the kind of spring in Central Oregon that is sunny and warmish one moment, the next cool, cloudy and damp. Sometimes I’ll have as many as three jackets, flannels or hoodies draped over the backs of our kitchen chairs because of the fickle weather. When I finally notice them, usually as my wife and I are sitting down to a meal, I’ll grab them and hang them up on hooks, a process I’m sure I’ll repeat for another few weeks, at least.

But before I know it, those layers will get put away in a closet for a few amazing months and T-shirts and shorts will be my apparel of choice.

But until then, there are always songs about spring. Here are a few that capture that certain fleeting something about the season.

“Always Spring,” I’m from Barcelona
I don’t know a lot about this upbeat 2000s Swedish band, other than another song of theirs, “The Painter,” which also stood out to me during a rather busy time in indie rock. I also read on their Spotify “about” that like Canadian contemporaries Broken Social Scene, they had a sprawling, ever-shifting lineup, with over two dozen players on Barcelona’s debut EP. That’s ridiculous! But hey, the result of their approach speaks for itself: The lyrics of the perky “Always Spring” don’t even say all that much, yet the chorus — “Somewhere it’s summer, somewhere it’s always spring,” eventually just repeating “Somewhere it’s always spring” to close out the song — will have me thinking romantically about spring all winter long. Somewhere it’s always spring, and right now, that’s Central Oregon, lucky for us.

“Here Comes the Sun,” The Beatles
The Beatles had a bunch of songs about the sun: “I’ll Follow the Sun,” “Good Day Sunshine,” “Sun King” and of course, the best of the bunch, “Here Comes the Sun.” Sure, it’s an obvious choice, but if you’re putting together a spring playlist, you’d be a fool to leave off “Here Comes the Sun,” with the beautiful one-two punch of “Little darling, it’s been a long cold lonely winter/Little darling, it feels like years since it’s been here.” Anyone who’s spent a few to several winters in Central Oregon will probably find that one relatable.

“Mr. Blue Sky,” Electric Light Orchestra
Following up The Beatles with this happy banger from ELO is fitting, given that for a moment there in the 1970s, even former members of Beatles thought Jeff Lynne and company sounded a lot like The Beatles. ELO had a lot of great songs, but none deserved those comparisons more than the sunny, bouncy “Mr. Blue Sky.” What a pretty, Beatlesesque outro it has, too.

“All the Lilacs in Ohio,” John Hiatt
Back in 2001, Hiatt released an album of great song after great song, “The Tiki Bar is Open,” ranging from rock (“Everybody Went Low”) to blues (“Something Broken”) to psychedelia (“Farther Stars”). “All the Lilacs in Ohio” is one you might hum along with, but generally sleep on the lyrics, or at least I did. Then one day a while back I was driving and listening to this album — on CD in the minivan, because I am a Luddite — and it was like I was hearing the lyrics of “Lilacs” for the first time. It’s a song of missed romantic connection and nostalgia, about a guy “With a bad case of wintertime blues” in New York whose date “had a taxi to carry her home/The she left her handkerchief there beside you on the seat/As if to emphasize that you were all alone/It smelled like springtime when you were just a boy/And all the lilacs in Ohio…” As the song subject’s life goes on, he keeps her handkerchief, and he never forgets.

“April Come She Will,” Simon & Garfunkel
Though a bit depressing, this song, like a lot of the folk duo’s output, is yet another great pairing of Simon’s lyrics and Garfunkel’s angelic high notes. Those words mention months other than spring — “August, die she must” — but at less than 2 minutes long and wrapping up with September, “April Come She Will” captures the ephemeral nature of the warmer months.

Honorable mentions
There’s a slew of other songs I could include here, but space is limited and I had to talk about the greatness of “All the Lilacs in Ohio.”

Sting’s “Fields of Gold” isn’t specifically about spring, but I first heard it traveling by rail in the spring of ‘93 around Europe, often staring out the windows at fields of gold. Dream-pop band High Highs’ “Flowers Bloom” is about as pretty as it gets.

Talking about flowers, Talking Heads’ “(Nothing But) Flowers” manages to upend things by complaining about the demise of civilization, “Now, it’s all covered in flowers … If this is paradise, I wish I had a lawnmower.”

Speaking of mowing, I’ve discovered a vole has moved in beneath my backyard writing shed, creating a snakelike path in the lawn, which over the past week has shot up dense and green. I suppose I’d better mow it. Now, where’d I put those headphones?