Edgar Yipsel Harburg (bornIsidore Hochberg; April 8, 1896 – March 5, 1981) was an American popular songlyricist andlibrettist who worked with many well-known composers. He wrote the lyrics to the standards "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (withJay Gorney), "April in Paris", and "It's Only a Paper Moon", as well as all of the songs for the filmThe Wizard of Oz, including "Over the Rainbow".[1] He was known for the social commentary of his lyrics, as well as his leftist leanings. He championed racial, sexual and gender equality and union politics. He also was an ardent critic of high society and religion.[2][3]
He later adopted the name "Edgar Yipsel Harburg", and came to be best known as "Yip". It has been claimed that Harburg took the name "Yipsel" because it meant "squirrel" in Yiddish, but there is no such Yiddish word and it is likely that the name was derived from that of theYoung People's Socialist League (1907), the youth group of theSocialist Party of America, whose members were called "yipsels".[8]
Harburg attendedTownsend Harris High School, where he andIra Gershwin, who bonded over a shared fondness forGilbert and Sullivan, worked on the school paper and became lifelong friends. According to his son Ernie Harburg, Gilbert and Irish dramatistGeorge Bernard Shaw taught his father—a "democratic socialist, [and] sworn challenger of all tyranny against the people"—that "'humor is an act of courage' and dissent".[9]
After World War I, Harburg returned to New York and graduated fromCity College (later part of theCity University of New York), which Ira Gershwin had initially attended with him,[10] in 1921.[11] After Harburg married and had two children, he started writing light verse for local newspapers. He became a co-owner of Consolidated Electrical Appliance Company, but the company went bankrupt following thecrash of 1929, leaving Harburg "anywhere from $50,000 – $70,000 in debt",[12] which he insisted on paying back over the course of the next few decades. At this point, Harburg andIra Gershwin agreed that Harburg should start writing song lyrics.
Gershwin introduced Harburg toJay Gorney, who collaborated with him on songs for anEarl CarrollBroadwayrevue (Earl Carroll's Sketchbook): the show was successful and Harburg was engaged as lyricist for a series of successful revues, includingAmericana in 1932, for which he wrote the lyrics of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" to the tune of a lullaby Gorney had learned as a child in Russia. This song swept the nation, becoming an anthem of theGreat Depression.
Harburg was a staunch critic of both high society and religion. He wrote a poem entitled "Atheist" that summarized his views on God.[2][3]
Of his work onThe Wizard of Oz, his son (and biographer) Ernie Harburg has said:
So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time and the setup to the songs and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And he—there were eleven screenwriters on that—and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines and gave the thing a coherence and unity which made it a work of art. But he doesn't get credit for that. He gets lyrics by E. Y. Harburg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his influence on the thing.[12]
Working in Hollywood did not stop Harburg's career on Broadway. In the 1940s, he wrote a series of "book" musicals with social messages, including the successfulBloomer Girl (1944), set during theCivil War, which was abouttemperance andwomen's rights activistAmelia Bloomer, and which celebrated equality for women,Abolitionism, and theUnderground Railroad. Harburg's best known Broadway show,Finian's Rainbow (1947) was, in its original production, possibly the first Broadway musical with a racially integrated chorus line. Its plot satirized American financial practices and criticized reactionist politicians, mistreatment of the working classes as well as racism and theJim Crow laws. It was made intoa film in 1968 starringFred Astaire andPetula Clark, directed byFrancis Ford Coppola.
Harburg was named in a pamphletRed Channels: The Report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television; his involvement with the Hollywood Democratic Committee, and his refusal to identify reputed communists, led to him being blocked from working in Hollywood films, television, and radio for twelve full years, from 1950[15] to 1962.[16] "As the writer of the lyric of the song 'God's Country', I am outraged by the suggestion that somehow I am connected with, believe in, or am sympathetic with Communist or totalitarian philosophy", he wrote to theHouse Un-American Activities Committee in 1950.[16] He was unable to travel abroad during this period because his passport had been revoked.[11]
With a score bySammy Fain and Harburg's lyrics, the musicalFlahooley (1951) satirized the country's anti-communist sentiment,[11] but it closed after forty performances at theBroadhurst Theatre on Broadway. The New York critics were dismissive of the show, although it had been a success during its earlier pre-Broadway run in Philadelphia.[17]
Harburg died while driving onSunset Boulevard in Los Angeles on March 5, 1981, at the age of 84. While he was initially reported to have been killed in a traffic accident,[1] it was later determined that he suffered a heart attack while stopped at a red light.[19]
In April 2005, theUnited States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp recognizing Harburg's accomplishments. The stamp was drawn from a portrait taken by photographerBarbara Bordnick in 1978 along with a rainbow and lyric from "Over the Rainbow". The first day ceremony was held at the92nd Street Y in New York.[28]
Harburg wrote the lyrics for more than 500 songs.[74] The following (all listed in[75]) are some of the most notable for their popularity or social importance.
Harburg, E.Y. (1965).Rhymes for the Irreverent. New York: Grossman.ISBN0670597341.
Harburg, E.Y. (1976).At This Point in Rhyme: E.Y. Harburg's Poems. New York: Crown.ISBN0517527278.
Harburg, Yip (2006).Rhymes for the Irreverent. Madison, Wisconsin: Freedom From Religion Foundation.ISBN1877733156. Contains material fromRhymes for the Irreverent (1965) andAt This Point in Rhyme, and previously unpublished poems.
Bustin' with Bliss: 5Q4 Ernie Harburg at theWayback Machine (archived 31 July 2012), an interview with Ernie Harburg about his father's commemorative stamp, his bar and restaurant, and that year's revival ofFinian's Rainbow (2009)
.jpg)
