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[0:00] Paul Lazarus: Hi, this is Paul Lazarus. In the 1980s, I produced and hosted a radio series called Anything Goes, a celebration of the American musical theater. Now, the Broadway Podcast Network is bringing back these shows. Today, Part 1 of a three-part visit with legendary writer and Broadway's social conscience, E.Y. "Yip" Harburg. Harburg is best remembered for "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and his masterwork, "Over the Rainbow." This program was originally broadcast in 1980.

[1:05] E.Y. Harburg: My head feels so ginger beer. Something so dare-ish, so I don't care-ish, stirs me from limb to limb. It's so terrifish, magnifish, delish, to have such an amourish, glamourish dish. We could be all so bright and groomish. Skies could be so bluish blue. Life could be so love and bloomish if my ishes could come true.

[1:46] Paul Lazarus: Something sort of grandish, a program devoted to the life and lyrics of E.Y. Harburg, better known by his delightful nickname, Yip. One of the musical theater's most gifted creators, Yip Harburg grew up on Manhattan's Lower East Side. At an early age, he fell in love with light first when he discovered Gilbert and Sullivan. In high school, he and a fellow classmate, named Ira Gershwin, wrote some comic features for the newspaper. Later, it was Ira Gershwin and the crash of 1929 that convinced Yip Harburg that he should try writing for a living. Before the crash came, he'd always considered writing just a hobby. Selling electric lamps was his business. It was also the crash of 1929 which gave Yip Harburg his first hit song.

You'll be listening to selections from a prerecorded interview, excerpts from An Evening at the 92nd Street YMHA, and many of the songs by Yip Harburg. The song that established Yip Harburg firmly in the public ear in 1932 was a song written with composer Jay Gourney for a Schubert Brothers review called Americana. The song, here performed by Yip himself at the YMHA evening, is "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?"

[3:09] ♪ Musical number: "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[5:13] Paul Lazarus: Lyricist Yip Harburg singing his own song, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" A song which became the theme song for America during the Depression years. Yip, during his appearance at the Lyricist and Lyric Series, told the story of how the Schubert Brothers, producers of Americana, in which "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was featured, almost cut the song. The Schubert Brothers, who were living apart for the last 25 years, one of them lived over the top of the Schubert Theater, the other lived over the top of Sardi's, and they hadn't spoken for 25 years. They had a system. The medium was not the message at that time. It was notes and said, tell him to come over and tell him to listen to some songs.

J.J. Schubert had to corroborate and verify all the songs that Lee was doing at the time. He came over and we sang. He says, tell him to listen to this song for the show. J.J. listened and we sang "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" We sang our heart out. And his face fell. It hadn't very far to fall. And he said, tell him I don't like it. And so Lee said, ask him why. And so J.J., drawing himself up to his full splendid dictatorship and compounding his outrage, said, because it's too sorbid. But Lee was the senior partner and we got it in. The rest was history. Of course, the way we came to write it was a kind of a serendipity thing too. Rankers and brokers were on the streets then coming up to you with "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?"

"Can You Spare a Dime?" And the phrase, of course, impacted itself. And I said, this would be a great show for this Americana because it was about the forgotten man. And I was writing with Jay Gourney at the time and he had a tune and the tune had a lyric. It was a torch song and it went this way. I could go on crying big blue tears ever since you said we were through. I could go on crying big blue tears. Well, I said, Jay, is that lyric wedded to this tune? And he says, well, we can get a little divorce if we have the right tactics. And so I said, I've got a title for it. And then it came to be "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" And that's how the thing was written. That's how the thing had gotten into the show.

Vincent Ewens was to be my composer. That's right. And we did one number. He got a big advance and he disappeared. And the show was scheduled for two months away, two or three months away. And so I had no composer. And after meeting, I said, well, if I could be fed plenty of music by several people, I'll do the show. Because all I needed was good tunes to inspire me. And in order to make up for lost time and for the time that we spent looking for Vincent Ewens, I did some of the songs with Jay Gourney, some with Harold Arlen, and some with Burt Lane. And they were all unknown. I didn't realize Burt Lane had written songs. Yeah, yeah. I called him in because he came and played two or three tunes which I liked.

I said, fine, I'll pick this. Jay had three or four tunes. I said, good, I'll pick those. And Arlen came in with some tunes that he had. Is that the first time you worked with both Harold Arlen and Burt Lane in the same show?

[9:50] E.Y. Harburg: Right. Isn't that amazing? Right, yes. That's incredible. And you really didn't know either one before then? Well, Harold Arlen and I met through Earl Carroll. He contributed some songs to the...

[10:03] E.Y. Yip Harburg: The Vanities. The 8th Vanities. So I met him backstage. And I liked his stuff. It was rather new. It was sort of a challenge to me, an enigma. But I thought he had something that approached George Gershwin. At least, they really weren't the same, but he had an Americana, a typical American. It was away from the Viennese derivation of the Kearns and the other writers. And I took a shine to that gutsy, earthy, really, he comes out of a cotton club, you know. Black music. But it wasn't black music, it was a combination of Hebrew and Semitic music, Semitic and black music, Congo music, which I seemed to have a great affection for. I seemed to be able to write easy in that vein, much easier than I could in the flowery vein, you know, the Viennese operettas, the sweet songs.

[11:19] Paul Lazarus: I'd like to ask you about one more song in Americana, and that was a song that you wrote with Johnny Mercer. That was a song called "Satan's Little Lamb." And I was wondering what it was like at that time to work, because I know you had been used to collaborating with other people, but Johnny Mercer, I don't believe you had worked with before.

[11:37] E.Y. Yip Harburg: Johnny Mercer was a newcomer at the time. And I heard one or two of his things, and I began, I liked him. And I thought he was a kid with a lot of, well, I would say popular poetry, you know, it was down-to-earth poetry.

[12:13] ♪ Musical number: "Satan's Little Lamb" — performed by Ethel Merman ♪

[14:56] Paul Lazarus: Ethel Merman singing "Satan's Little Lamb" from the 1926 review Americana. My guest today on Anything Goes is renowned lyricist, master of whimsy, E.Y. Yip Harburg. Implicit sometimes in satire is a sense of prophecy to sense the future in the instant. Instinct to see a little ahead of your time is what gives the satirist the funny point of view on the present. And so this next song, which was written for the Follies of 1934, happens to accommodate the youth of today who have reduced the English language to two phrases and a catch-all adverb. Like. I mean like where the producer says to the lyricist, he should, you know, like, I mean, write a song like it should, you know, like communicate the lack of communication. So here is a song that does that.

[16:00] ♪ Musical number: "I Like the Likes of You" ♪

[17:20] Paul Lazarus: I want to move on to Life Begins at 840, which I love that title. And that's when you really got back with your old high school buddy, Ira and Gertrude, and did a show with Harold Arlen.

[17:38] E.Y. Yip Harburg: Correct. Yeah.

[17:39] Paul Lazarus: Was that kind of a, was that fun to get back together?

[17:43] E.Y. Yip Harburg: That was great fun. Yeah. That was real collaboration. And it was exciting and playful and joyous and a beautiful show. And it was a score I was very proud of. And Ira and I worked together beautifully. We had lots of fun.

[17:58] Paul Lazarus: Did you really write the songs together?

[18:04] E.Y. Yip Harburg: I mean, yes, we, we got together every night at nine o'clock or ten o'clock and worked till four o'clock in the morning.

[18:09] Paul Lazarus: Oh, that's fabulous.

[18:10] E.Y. Yip Harburg: With Harold at the piano. And it was just joyous. I really like that song. I mean, "You're a Builder Upper" and all that. What was great about that was that George was busy writing Porgy and Bess. And he had a penthouse across the street on 72nd Street. And Ira lived on the, on the north side of the street. George lived on the south. So we were working in Ira's house while George was there. And then we'd get together and George would play us what he was doing on Porgy and Bess. And we would play him what we were doing on Life Begins at 840.

[18:41] Paul Lazarus: Oh, that must have been a really good time.

[18:43] E.Y. Yip Harburg: Glorious days. Glorious days.

[18:50] ♪ Musical number: "You're a Builder Upper" ♪

[20:07] ♪ Musical number: "You're A Builder Upper" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[21:23] Paul Lazarus: Yeah, 1939 you wrote a score for a film called The Wizard of Oz and uh yeah that was no one will ever forget the name of E.Y. Harburg since then. Um, one of the great things about that score is I think that it revealed your whimsical side and uh you wrote lines like "I'd unravel every riddle for uh every individual" and uh you rhyme prowess with malice and things like that which have really I come to associate with your style and are distinctly E.Y. Harburg.

[22:01] E.Y. Harburg: I think so. I think I have a penchant for uh playing with words and redirecting them. You enjoy especially if I have characters that are appropriate for that kind for example when I'm dealing with fairyland people, pixies like leprechauns and people in Oz then I have a right to do that, you see. And uh after all what is lyric writing? Lyric writing is word game, isn't it?

[22:23] Paul Lazarus: How did those occur to you? I can't imagine they're they're so wonderful.

[22:30] E.Y. Harburg: I don't know. I just think language is the most playful thing there is and if you can't play with language if you're a lyric writer that after all uh if you want funny lyrics you have to have funny sounds and funny thoughts and if you can well now look at James Joyce did in a serious way almost he got a world reputation didn't he for taking words mixing them up putting them together and whether you know it or not you have an identification with these words in a much more imaginative and exciting way than you do with real words because you can take two and three words.

[23:28] E.Y. Harburg: Now take for example a thing that I always love to show and I'm talking left as an take as an example or have the guacamara. How are things in guacamara? Why is that so interesting to people? Guacamara. Because again I am not only just taking words out of the air for a place that is non-existent for a place that would be desirous for everyone to want to reach for. Well, guacamara if I said Cleveland you wouldn't care about what's going there, would you? But guacamara whether you know it or not I combine glick glucker which is luck with mora which is tomorrow.

[24:18] E.Y. Harburg: Uh-huh, guacamara. So there's a subliminal luck, a subliminal identification with lucky tomorrow. Uh-huh. Is that Gaelic? The language is Gaelic. Glicker is Gaelic, mora is Gaelic.

[24:37] Paul Lazarus: Oh wonderful, I didn't know that.

[24:44] E.Y. Harburg: Yeah, but I'd love the word. Let's see what what is it behind that thing? It's taking life and keeping it on a childish level and kind of laughing at all the grown-ups who think that it's a serious proposition and that they got to work at it with not only with heavy machinery but with guns and with bombs and kill each other for it when it should be playful and light-hearted. And I think that that pervading idea inside of me that we live in a world that should be full of pixified fun, you know, flowers, buds and we make such heavy pompous materials to live by and with and I think psychologically it's my way of laughing at people who are serious and pompous and not seeing the playfulness of life and doing it through language.

[26:06] ♪ Musical number: "If I Only Had A Brain" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[27:12] E.Y. Harburg: Why it's a man, a man made out of tin, yes.

[27:21] Paul Lazarus: Did you say something?

[27:25] E.Y. Harburg: He said oil can.

[27:33] E.Y. Harburg: My my goodness I can talk again. Oh it feels wonderful. Well you're perfect now, perfect.

[27:43] Paul Lazarus: Bang on my chest if you think I'm perfect, go ahead bang on it.

[27:49] E.Y. Harburg: It's empty, the tinsmith forgot to give me a heart, all hollow.

[27:54] E.Y. Harburg: So when a man's an empty kettle he should be on his metal and yet I'm torn apart just because I'm presuming that I could be kind of human if I only had a heart.

[28:16] E.Y. Harburg: I'd be tender, I'd be gentle and awful sentimental regarding love and art. I'd be friends with the sparrows and the boy who shoots the arrows if I only had a heart.

[28:35] E.Y. Harburg: Picture me a balcony.

[28:39] E.Y. Harburg: I hear a beat.

[28:51] E.Y. Harburg: How sweet just to register emotion, jealousy, devotion and really feel the part.

[29:00] E.Y. Harburg: Uh, I could stay young and chipper and I'd lock it with a zipper if I only had a heart.

[29:13] Paul Lazarus: That was wonderful.

[29:15] E.Y. Harburg: Oh.

[29:27] Paul Lazarus: You've been listening to part one of a three-part look at the career of legendary writer Yip Harburg. Associate producer Jeff Lunden. Anything Goes: Backstage with Broadway's Best is produced and hosted by Paul Lazarus. For more information visit AnythingGoesPL.com. If you enjoyed this episode be sure to rate and follow us. Thanks for listening.