The fact the Bikel was a guitar playing folk singer made it easy for Rodgers to write music that sounded like an Austrian folk song, and when Hammerstein was released from the hospital and came up to Boston for the end of the tryout, He was able to add the lyrics to the Rodgers melody(The only other time an R&H song was written music first was "If I Loved You"- Rodgers wanted to free flow a melody with out being restricted to an already written lyric.-(See Complete Lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein)
