Paint Your Wagon

Musical by ALAN JAY LERNER and FREDERICK LOEWE, 1951. The action takes place during the gold rush in Northern California, in a mid-19th-century mining camp. A prospector discovers gold but suffers from loneliness and purchases one of the wives of a traveling Mormon at an auction. But the gold is soon depleted, the town falls into decay, and she falls in love with another. The sentimental ballad I Talk to the Trees is among the show's better-known songs.