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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 two of a three-part visit with legendary writer and Broadway 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.

[0:36] ♪ Musical number: "If I Only Had The Nerve" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[3:24] Paul Lazarus: During the evening with Yip Harburg at the 92nd Street Y, director Maurice Levine asked Mr. Harburg if his collaboration with composer Harold Arlen over the years had been a smooth one, particularly their time together writing The Wizard of Oz.

[3:39] E.Y. Harburg: It was. It was. I worked very well with Harold, except when we got to the ballad. But you always have trouble writing a ballad. How to say I love you in another way after it's been said how many thousands of times? But this particular ballad was a ballad for a little girl who was at odds with her school teacher and her mother and she was in trouble. And like all little girls wanted to get away from where she was at. And where was she at? Kansas, a dry, arid, colorless place. She had never seen anything colorful in her life except the rainbow. Well, where would a little girl like that, not knowing the world, want to go over that rainbow? And the other side of the rainbow. So I had that idea in mind of a little girl wanting something, a place somewhere that was around that rainbow.

And I told Harold about it and he went to work on a tune. I can't tell you the misery that a composer goes through when the whole score is written, but he hasn't got that big theme song that we'd be mayors waiting for. The contract is for 14 weeks and we're on our 14th week now. We don't get paid after the 14th week and he surely sweated it out and he couldn't get a tune for that. Until one night he called me, it was about 12 o'clock at night, and he said, please, please come right over. I've got the tune. I've got the tune. Well, I walked over. It was Beverly Hills at that time. It was 1937. We weren't afraid of being mugged. And he played, he played me this tune and he played it this way. I said, Harold, that's for Nelson Eddy.

[5:43] E.Y. Harburg: It was a symphony. It's not for a little girl yearning to be over a rainbow. And his spirits fell and we both more or less respected each other. I went home, very sad. He did too. And for two weeks after, without money from Metro, he was still working on that tune. Finally, he called me over and he said, Yipper, he said, I feel this tune. This is a great tune. Now you must write it. And I said, well, I'll write it. And he said, well, I'll write it. And he called me over and he said, Yipper, he said, I feel this tune. This is a great tune. Now you must write it. Well, when a composer like Harold says that, you've got to, as Willie Lowman's wife said, pay attention. I said, all right, I'll try to write it.

And I said, but at least the middle, the release, can you bring it down? Can you make it not a little girl, at least adolescent? He couldn't get a middle. Till finally, one day I had a little dog, Pan, a silly little dog, who ran away and Harold had a little whistle for him. And it went like this. I said, Harold.

[7:19] E.Y. Harburg: This is the crazy life we lead. This is the way songs are written.

[7:23] ♪ Musical number: "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[9:57] Paul Lazarus: Did you know that Judy Garland was going to sing it when you wrote it, or had you written it?

[10:03] E.Y. Harburg: Yes.

[10:03] E.Y. Harburg: Oh, it was absolutely written for her. Oh yes, she was chosen for the picture and the whole score was written for the people in the picture. That's probably one of the reasons it's so effective. It was tailored. Well, that's probably why "If I Were the King of the Forest" became what it became. Yes, that's right. It was tailored for Burt Lahr. You see, when you have a fellow like Burt Lahr, you're unlimited in your inspiration and your imagination and ideas for fun because you've got a master who can take your lyrics and wing them into laughter.

[10:59] ♪ Musical number: "If I Were King of the Forest" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[13:47] E.Y. Harburg: I am always very disappointed when I see the picture though because they deleted several songs at the end of the picture and they made it a chase and I feel the loss of music there and they should not have done that. Several songs were taken out at the end of the picture which should have been in. It would have been a much better picture.

[14:16] Who were they sung by? Well, one was the jitterbug song when the jitterbugs come down.

[14:23] E.Y. Harburg: Who's that hiding in the treetop? It's that rascal, the jitterbug. Oh. Charming song. Yeah, I'll have to hear that. And what happened too, Harold had such an ingenious tune for it.

[14:46] E.Y. Harburg: Who's that hiding in the tree? Which later on became ballyhoy. Another show after "THE WIZARD OF OZ" was a show that's once again to go from a very, very well-known show to a not as well-known show, "HOLD ONTO YOUR HATS," 1940. It was a vehicle for Al Jolson. It was for Al Jolson, yes. And I love that score and I've been hearing songs from it lately. Steve Ross played me a song. Well, it's coming out again on Ben Bagley's next album. I can't wait to be able to hear this score. He thought it was a shame for that score to be lost. Absolutely. It sounds like don't let it get you down. And Burt Lane at his tops. It was Burt Lane's really our first effort together. And I enjoyed that score very much.

[15:59] E.Y. Harburg: Far was far, just a night ago, and just a night ago, too. I seemed so all miscast, just getting nowhere fast. Here was I, a gypsy, looking for a world to roam in. Now the world is in my arms. No more aimless searching for a place to feel at home in, for the world is in my arms. Mexican hills, Florida skies, tropical seas here in your eyes. When I see you smile, I see the sunsets of Geneva. What's that magic in your charms? When I hold you, I hold the world right here in my arms.

[17:31] E.Y. Harburg: "The Eagle and Me" from "Bloom and Girl" is one of my absolute favorite lyrics of yours. Yes, it's mine, too. In fact, Stephen Sondheim, I know in a lecture on lyrics, said that he considers the line in that song, ever since that day when the world was an onion, one of the greatest lyric lines ever written in the history of the craft. By the way, you know that it's geologically true that the world has layers like an onion, one on top of another. Is that where you got the line? Is that how you got inspired? Yes, I remembered it from a geology class. I remember the instructor saying that it had layers of layers like an onion, and I never forgot that image of the world.

[18:20] E.Y. Harburg: What makes a gopher leave his hole, trembling with fear and fright? Maybe the gopher's got a soul wanting to see the light. That's it, oh yeah, oh yeah, that's it. The scripture has it written. That's your life, that's it. Nobody like coal, nobody like chain. Don't a good lord all around you make it plain. River like to flow, eagle like to fly. Eagle like to feel its wings against the sky. Possum like to run, ivy like to climb. Bird in the tree and bumblebee want freedom in autumn or summertime. Ever since that day when the world was an onion, was natural for the spirit to soar and play. The way the lord wanted it free as the sun is free. That's how it's gotta be. Whatever is right for bumblebee and river and eagle is right for me. We gotta be free, the eagle and me.

[20:08] ♪ Musical number: "The Eagle And Me" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[21:18] E.Y. Harburg: Here's how songs get written in a show. An example: In Finian's Rainbow, a pixelated Irishman named Finian has a scheme. If Americans can bury gold in a hole in Fort Knox and become rich, why can't he? He unveils his daughter Sharon to come to Mississippi after painting a glowing picture of a dazzling world. One look at Tobacco Road and she wants to get back. And now we have a confrontation. And Sharon says, "To think I let you whisk me out of Ireland across an ocean, down a continent, in this sweet green month of April." And for what? "For what," says Finian. "For a beautiful new life in a beautiful new land where the bees give certified honey and the spiders spin their webs of nylon." And Sharon says, "I should have known you were up to something.

Ever since I was two years high, you've been seeing leprechauns in the cabbage patch, rainbows over your whiskey jug." And Finian says, "Sharon, you'll love it here. You're going to have everything you left behind in Gloucester." At this point, no use arguing. Argument will only be repetitious. And the librettist finds he's stuck for further words. Who's the librettist? Only the heightened emotion of a song can supply the dramatic climax to this scene. That's how he calls upon the lyricist for help. And if the librettist and the lyricist are the same guy, then heaven and St. Patrick be with him. Well, we need a song. There are many ways of approaching a theme. In this case, it's Sharon's song, Problem.

How will she handle this wily old man? Shakespeare: "Hamlet, the play's the thing we're in to catch the conscience of the king." And the song is the thing we're in to catch the conscience of that old fox. She will get him back to Ireland not by harangue and frustration, but by something more subtle, nostalgia. Now, we let the flute send up a skylark note into the air, and Sharon, with one eye cocked on the old rascal, sings, "I hear a bird, a glockamore, a bird. It well may be he's bringing me a cheering word."

[24:10] ♪ Musical number: "How Are Things In Glocca Morra?" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪

[26:23] E.Y. Harburg: He falls in love with her. He swears this is it, it's forever. And the next day he meets Susan. He gets the same eternal feeling. He's bewildered, he's guilty, conflicted. Write a song for him. Well, this was an easy one for me, 'cause having been a leprechaun before I was a lyricist, I knew just what he was going to say. "Oh, my heart is beating wildly, and it's all because you're here. When I'm not near the girl I love, I love the girl I'm near."

[29:01] ♪ Musical number: "When I'm Not Near The Girl I Love" — performed by E.Y. Harburg ♪