Show Synopsis:
Curley McLain and Jud Fry have both asked Laurey Williams to the box social dance, and even though she likes Curley, Laurey accepts Jud to spite Curley's teasing nature. Ado Annie has been seeing the Persian peddlar Ali Hakim while her sweetheart Will was in Kansas City and does not want to choose between the two of them. Annie's father Andrew forces Ali to propose to Annie while Curley tries to convince Jud to go to the dance with someone else. Laurey has a smelling salt-induced nightmare where she realizes that Curley is the man she wants, but she leaves for the dance with Jud anyway. Ali buys all of Will's souvenirs from Kansas City so that Will will have an acceptable amount of money for Andrew to approve of him proposing to Annie. In the basket auction, where men bid on the women's baskets and thus win dates with them, Ali tries to outbid Will so that Will will save his money, and Curley and Jud enter a bidding war in which Curley sells everything he has to win Laurey's basket. Annie promises Will she will not flirt with other men if they marry and Jud threatens Laurey, who accepts Curley's proposal of marriage. Three weeks later, a drunken Jud reappears at their wedding and tries to kill Curley, accidentally killing himself in the process. Laurey and Curley go off on their honeymoon.

Character:
Curly McLain, a handsome farmer; arrogant but charming.

Song Context:
Curly starts his day off praising the weather because he believes that it's a good sign of things to come. He is positive that the lovely Laurey will accept his offer to go to the box social.

Fun Facts:
1. This musical is based on Lynn Riggs's play Green Grow The Lilacs. 
2. Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein agreed very early on in their creative process that every song in Oklahoma! would reflect the mood of the singer or the scene, which was a revolutionary idea at the time. 
3. The second verse of this song, particularly the line about cows "standin' still as statues," was inspired by a beautiful day Hammerstein spent on a farm, when he spontaneously composed a quatrain to describe the view: "The breeze steps aside/To let the day pass./The cows on the hill/Are as still as the grass."