The Life and Lyrics of E. Y. "Yip" Harburg
Over the years there have been a lot of people who have been called "the most famous person in the world that you've never heard of." But of all those, possibly the most deserving of the appellation is classic American song lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg.
During his long career Harburg wrote the words to more than 600 songs. Most you probably don't know. But we can guarantee that you know at least a few of them.
Such as "Over the Rainbow," for instance. Yes, that "Over the Rainbow." The one from the classic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, Judy Garland's signature tune, voted "Song of the Century" by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Recording Industry Association of America in 2001. From babies still in the womb to headhunters in the remotest regions of Borneo, everyone knows "Over the Rainbow."
And how about "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," the immortal anthem of the Great Depression. Everyone's heard that phrase. It's become such a part of the cultural consciousness that you can say it to just about anyone on the street and get an instant flash of recognition. (Maybe a dime, too.)
Let's not forget "It's Only a Paper Moon." The label "Paper Moon" has been applied to everything from gift shops and jazz clubs to design studios and music groups. Its gradual transformation over the past thirty years into a post-modern emblem of hipster nostalgia has largely been due to Peter Bogdanovich's Oscar-winning 1973 film of that title. But Bogdanovich got his title from the song lyrics. Which were written by Yip.
There's also "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady," Groucho Marx's signature song, from the celebrated Marx Bros. picture At the Circus. Yip wrote the lyrics for that one, too.
And then there's these well-loved standards:
- "April in Paris"
- "If I Only Had a Brain"
- "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead"
- "We're Off to See the Wizard"
- "Old Devil Moon"
- "Down with Love" (yes, the one that the movie was named after)
- "Last Night When We Were Young"
- "Look to the Rainbow"
- "When I'm Not Near the Girl I Love"
- "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe"
- "The Eagle and Me" (Sondheim's favorite lyric)
Now how's that for an impressive list? If "Over the Rainbow" and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" are not the best-known songs of all time, then they're certainly in the top ten. And not just in America, either, but around the world. On the strength of just those two songs alone, Harburg's words have arguably affected, influenced, and moved more people than those of any other popular songwriter in history.
But the author of those words, the one who gave the songs their famous titles, and gave them meaning for untold millions across the country and around the globe, is virtually unknown.
This rather unjust state of affairs is something that we at Modern Major Films hope to remedy with our documentary film Dare to Dream: The Life and Lyrics of E. Y. "Yip" Harburg. The title comes from the line in "Over the Rainbow": "And the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true." Harburg was a dreamer. He lived the American dream. He dreamed of a better world for everyone. He wrote his dreams in song, and they became other people's dreams, too. For many the dreams became a reality. They listened to and sang his lyrics, and their world did get better.
A Singing, Dancing Trip Through Harburg's Life and Times
The incredible power and vitality of Harburg's songs provides us with tremendous potential to create a dynamic, irresistible film. We want this to be not just a typical documentary but more of a singing, dancing, musical trip through Yip's life and times—a "documusical." We were very impressed with the recent Emmy-winning Tony Bennett: American Classic and have decided that a cornerstone of our film will be a series of exciting new performances of Harburg's classic songs by an array of today's most talented performing artists.
For the past few months we've been busy on the phone with agents, managers, and record company people, leaving voicemails, sending faxes, trolling the Web for e-mail addresses, following any and every lead, and we have been phenomenally successful, much to our surprise and delight. We have received enthusiastic responses from such wonderfully talented artists as Randy Newman, Carly Simon, Joe Jackson, Cassandra Wilson, Michael Feinstein, They Might Be Giants, Madeleine Peyroux, Bobby McFerrin, Bill Frisell, Erin McKeown, John Pizzarelli, Josh White, Jr., and more.
But we don't want to get so caught up in the entertainment side that we neglect the history. Harburg lived through some of the most significant moments of the twentieth century. His works, though in many ways timeless, are closely linked to the era in which they were created. Knowing how his writing was shaped by his background as well as contemporaneous events is key to understanding the nature and impact of his creations.
From the Tenements to Tinseltown
Born to Russian-Jewish immigrant parents in the tenements of New York's Lower East Side in 1896, Harburg worked his way out of poverty like the hero of a Horatio Alger novel to become co-owner of a thriving electrical appliance business in the 1920s. The Crash of 1929 would leave him penniless and deep in debt, but rather than jump out a window Harburg jumped for joy. He had always hated working in the business world, and the Crash finally gave him permission to give it up and concentrate on his first love—lyric writing.
Yip set to work at his new profession with the same determination to succeed that had propelled him out of the ghetto. His boyhood chum Ira Gershwin loaned him $500 in subsistence funds and introduced him around to Broadway composers. By 1932 Harburg was once again at the top, writing three of his most enduring numbers—"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," "April in Paris," and "It's Only a Paper Moon"—all that same year. Later would come other successes such as an Oscar for "Over the Rainbow" in 1939 and the smash hit musicals Bloomer Girl in 1944 and Finian's Rainbow in 1947.
Broadway's Social Conscience
But Yip didn't just write hit songs. He also wrote persistently, and powerfully, about important social issues. He was an idealistic reformer who fully deserved the nickname "Broadway's Social Conscience."
One of Harburg's first successes as a songwriter was "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" from the 1932 Broadway show Americana. The show didn't last but the song became a huge hit. Recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee were getting airplay simultaneously. "Brother" is probably the only song about home-grown American impoverishment ever to top the charts. Yip's lyric touched a nerve with all of America, telling as it did the story of a proud working man who had literally built the country with the sweat of his brow: "Once I built a railroad, made it run." Thrown out of work through no fault of his own, he wonders, "Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread?"
In subsequent years Harburg would write songs and musicals which were anti-war (1937's Hooray for What? and 1961's The Happiest Girl in the World), anti-racist (1944's "Free and Equal Blues," written specifically to protest the racial segregation of the U.S. Army's blood supply, and the hit musical Finian's Rainbow from 1947), pro-feminist (The Happiest Girl in the World and 1944's Bloomer Girl), anti-corporate (Finian's Rainbow again, and also 1951's Flahooley), and pro-environment (1963's "The Silent Spring," after Rachel Carson's famous book of the same name).
Harburg genuinely felt his lyrics could help change the world for the better. "Songs have been the not-so-secret weapon behind every fight for freedom, every struggle against injustice and bigotry," he once said. "'The Marseilles,' 'The Battle Hymn of the Republic,' 'We Shall Overcome,' and many more." Yet he battled injustice not with anger but with an impish, pixie-like sense of humor that makes his proselytizing difficult to resist—even if you don't always agree with him.
Blacklisted
The year 1947 was a pivotal one in American history, marking a shift in the mood of the country from New Deal liberalism to Cold War conservatism. That year the House Un-American Activities Committee began to investigate possible Communist infiltration of the media. The conviction of the Hollywood Ten of contempt of Congress for refusing to answer questions about their alleged Communist affiliations marked the beginning of the blacklist. Soon anti-Communist hysteria would sweep all of Hollywood, destroying careers and sometimes even lives. Anyone with even a hint of socialist taint was suspect.
And Yip unfortunately had much more than just a hint of socialism about him. His social-issue lyrics almost always leaned decidedly leftward. What's more, during the 1930s and '40s he had been associated with civil rights and social justice groups which would later be accused of supporting subversive Communist activities. After his name appeared in Red Channels in 1950 he was summarily fired from the musical version of Huckleberry Finn that he had been working on at MGM. For the next twelve years he would be barred from writing for the movies, radio, and television. This despite the fact that he had never been a member of the Communist Party, and no one ever accused him of having been so.
After being blacklisted, Harburg's career took a nose-dive. He was still able to write for Broadway, but his 1951 musical Flahooley was a devastating failure. He had a hit with 1957's Jamaica, but once again tasted defeat with 1961's The Happiest Girl in the World. (She turned out to not be so happy after all.)
The End of an Era
The blacklist finally ended in 1960 and Yip was once again free to be hired to work on movies and television shows. The trouble was, no one was hiring. In the time he had been away, pop music had changed. Now it was rocking and rolling to the beat of a different drummer. It was the end of an old era, and the start of a new. Berlin, Porter, and Rodgers and Hammerstein were being replaced by Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards. The resurgence of political activism in the Sixties might well have created a new audience for Harburg's unique brand of social satire. Ironically, however, Yip was unable to accept or adapt to the changes in popular music that had taken place in his absence.
But that didn't stop him from trying. In fact, he was driving down Sunset Boulevard on his way to a story conference for a film adaptation of Treasure Island when he died of a heart attack in 1981. Following an outpouring of eulogies, Harburg's name faded from public memory, even though awareness of his songs has remained strong.
By connecting such enduring and widely-recognized songs as "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and "Over the Rainbow" with their multi-faceted lyricist, our film will provide viewers with a new appreciation for words and music they have been hearing all their lives.
