Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist

A Note to the Reader

A Note to the Reader As Yip Harburg said many times, “When something is set to music, you have a more powerful force of communication because then you have not only the words, which give destination to the song, but the music which gives wings to the words.”12 Unfortunately, this book can present only one-half of the equation: the lyrics. So I urge you to seek out the songs—lyrics and music—which are readily available on solo and original cast or other recordings, on film, and online. I particularly encourage you to listen toYip Sings Harburg (Koch International Classics, 1996) and E. Y. Harburg: American Songbook Series (Smithsonian Collection of Recordings), and to view A Visit with E. Y. “Yip” Harburg: A Life in Concert (DRG Records and Sony Fox Production). A list of the works I used for this book appears in the bibliography. A complete discography can be found on the Yip Harburg Foundation website at www.yipharburg.com. In addition, you may find that the printed lyrics here have different line breaks than those you have seen elsewhere. This is because many lyrics are presented here as they appear in the unpublished sources I used, including interviews, librettos, random sheets of paper, and so on. In the same vein, the labels for verses and choruses also appear as they appeared in the sources and only when the entire lyric is quoted. On another note, you will notice the use of parentheses ( ) and brackets [ ] within excerpts from Yip’s interviews. The parentheses denote their original use in interview transcriptions. The brackets indicate something that I added for clarity, to provide important information , or to point out an inconsistency in Yip’s stories. This page intentionally left blank Yip Harburg This page intentionally left blank ...