Editor’s note: With this column, William Perry starts a three-part series on Broadway lyricists.
Oscar Hammerstein’s wife was once approached by a person who commented on how much he liked Jerome Kern’s “Old Man River.” “Excuse me,” said Mrs. Hammerstein. “Jerome Kern wrote dah-dah-dahdah. My husband wrote “Old Man River.”
The Broadway lyricist is often overlooked unless hooked to a composer as in Rodgers and Hammerstein. But the contribution of a fine lyric to the ultimate success of a song is undeniable, and this column and two more that follow will focus on the great lyricists and what they have brought to the Broadway stage. In some cases composers have written melodies to their own words, but even there, dah-dah-dahdah is only half the job.
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I think I can say without fearing reprisal that every Broadway songwriter of merit has initially looked to W.S. Gilbert of Gilbert and Sullivan for inspiration in rhyming and for putting the best words in the best order, as Coleridge once described poetry. Their songs have stood the test of time since the 19th century, and Gilbert’s remarkable poetry . . . it is that . . . continues to please and amuse.
In our own time, the words of Stephen Sondheim, married to his own remarkable music, set a similar standard that every writer should wish to equal. The current New York revival of Sweeney Todd shows how sheer talent can develop into sheer genius.
Neither Gilbert nor Sondheim will be covered in this column because each has already had a dedicated column in the past. You may access these in the Edge Archive: “Gilbert Without Sullivan” and “Sunday in the Edge with Steve”
As for other Broadway lyricists, my cup runneth over with the pleasure of recognizing and sharing their work with you.
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One of the first musicals I ever saw was A Connecticut Yankee. Music by Richard Rodgers; Lyrics by Lorenz (Larry) Hart. I had only rudimentary French, but I appreciated the wit of stanzas like this:
Let the prudish people quarrel —
We’ll forget them for the nonce.
If they think our Love immoral,
“Honi soit qui mal y pense.”
The standout hit of the show was a song called “To Keep My Love Alive,” sung by Queen Morgan Le Fay.
I’ve been married and married
And often I’ve sighed,
I’m never a bridesmaid,
I’m always the bride.
I never divorced them —
I hadn’t the heart.
Yet remember these sweet words:
“Till Death do us part.”
I’ve married many men, a ton of them,
And yet I was untrue to none of them
Because I bumped off ev’ry one of them
To keep my love alive.
Sir Paul was frail; he looked a wreck to me.
At night he was a horse’s neck to me.
So I performed an appendectomy
To keep my love alive.
Sir Thomas had insomnia;
He couldn’t sleep at night.
I bought a little arsenic.
He’s sleeping now all right.
Sir Philip played the harp; I cussed the thing.
I crowned him with his harp to bust the thing.
And now he plays where harps are just the thing.
To keep my love alive.
To keep my love alive.
Rodgers and Hart met in college and worked together on 28 stage musicals where Hart’s nimble wit and verbal dexterity combined perfectly with Rodgers’ unending flow of melody. Their finest collaboration was probably Pal Joey which introduced Gene Kelly to the world and gave us such memorable lyrics as:
I’m wild again, beguiled again,
A simpering, whimpering child again —
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
Am I.
Couldn’t sleep and wouldn’t sleep
Until I could sleep where I shouldn’t sleep —
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
Am I.
Lost my heart, but what of it?
My mistake, I agree.
He’s a laugh, but I love it
Because the laugh’s on me.
A pill he is, but still he is
All mine and I’ll keep him until he is
Bewitched, bothered and bewildered
Like me.
Hart had an enviable command of technique that challenged the refinements of serious poetry, but his personal life was a greater challenge. After many years of success, his increasing alcoholism and unreliability made further collaboration impossible. Rodgers needed a new lyricist, and he chose Oscar Hammerstein II. Larry Hart was in the audience when “Oklahoma” opened.
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Oscar Hammerstein, who was to become Steve Sondheim’s mentor, came from a theatrical family, and after initially studying law at Columbia, embraced the family tradition and wrote numerous shows and songs with Jerome Kern and other prominent composers. Here is one, expressed in what I might call operetta poetry. Music by Kern.
You are the promised kiss of springtime
That makes the lonely winter seem long.
You are the breathless hush of evening
That trembles on the brink of a lovely song.
You are the angel glow that lights a star,
The dearest things I know are what you are.
Some day my happy arms will hold you,
And some day I’ll know that moment divine,
When all the things you are, are mine.
Working with Rodgers, Hammerstein’s writing became more character-driven, and he developed a ground-breaking book musical approach with songs and dances fully integrated into the plot. As Sondheim once observed, Hammerstein became known by some people as the Norman Rockwell of lyricists with his skilled depictions of everyday people in believable situations. Few lyrics can match the honesty and genuineness of the “Soliloquy” in Carousel. And I admire the simplicity but depth of feeling in this song from The King and I.
This is a man who thinks with his heart.
His heart is not always wise.
This is a man who stumbles and falls,
But this is a man who tries.
This is a man you’ll forgive and forgive
And help and protect, as long as you live . . .
He will not always say
What you would have him say,
But now and then he’ll say
Something wonderful.
The thoughtless things he’ll do
Will hurt and worry you —
Then all at once he’ll do
Something wonderful.
He has a thousand dreams
That won’t come true.
You know that he believes in them
And that’s enough for you.
You’ll always go along,
Defend him when he’s wrong
And tell him when he’s strong
He is wonderful.
He’ll always need your love,
And so he’ll get your love
A man who needs your love
Can be wonderful.
Occasionally Hammerstein can slip off the track as in South Pacific when Nellie Forbush, a naive girl from Little Rock, describes herself as being “bromidic.” I had to look this up after first seeing South Pacific. And I still can’t quite get my head around the image of “a lark that is learning to pray” in The Sound of Music. But overall, Hammerstein’s lyrics are Americana at its best, and they brought out the best in Richard Rodgers.
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A special breed of Broadway lyricists are the ones who write their own music. Again, Stephen Sondheim tops the list with his character-driven songs (“Send in the Clowns”)
Irving Berlin wrote both words and music. “There’s No Business Like Show Business” is especially appealing.
Frank Loesser expertly captured the speech patterns and dialects of his characters as in his masterpiece, Guys and Dolls.
Jerry Herman’s songs are always likable and usually evoke toe-tapping. Or figure skating. Remember Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean skating to Mack and Mabel?
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But everyone’s favorite for beguiling melodies and sparkling lyrics is Cole Porter. Consider “Night and Day” or “Begin the Beguine.” When his finest show, Kiss Me, Kate, came out, everyone was singing “Another Op’nin’, Another Show,” and these carefree lines:
Brush up your Shakespeare,
Start quoting him now.
Brush up your Shakespeare
And the women you will wow.
Just declaim a few lines from “Othella”
And they’ll think you’re a hell of a fella.
If your blonde won’t respond when you flatter ‘er
Tell her what Tony told Cleopatterer.
If she says your behavior is heinous
Kick her right in the “Coriolanus.”
Brush up your Shakespeare
And they’ll all kowtow — Odds bodkins- –
All kowtow.
Porter was born in Indiana but came East for his higher education. On a football field in New Haven he delivered his first hit.
Bulldog! Bulldog!
Bow, wow, wow
Eli Yale
Bulldog! Bulldog!
Bow, wow, wow
Our team can never fail
When the sons of Eli
Break through the line
That is the sign we hail
Bulldog! Bulldog!
Bow, wow, wow
Eli Yale!
From this collegiate start, Porter went on to write words and music for fourteen shows, of which two are absolute masterworks: Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate. Smiling through the pain of a horseback accident that left him crippled and in pain for the last twenty-five years of his life, he still gave us an abundance of scintillating verse and music.
Here from Anything Goes is one of one of Porter’s specialties, a “list song,” sometimes called a “catalogue song.” This format presents a series of people or events that gain in comic effect as it goes along. Ko-ko’s “I’ve Got a Little List” song in The Mikado is a prime example, and this is one of Porter’s best.
At words poetic, I’m so pathetic
That I always have found it best,
Instead of getting ’em off my chest,
To let ’em rest unexpressed.
I hate parading my serenading
As I’ll probably miss a bar,
But if this ditty is not so pretty
At least it’ll tell you
How great you are.
You’re the top!
You’re the Colosseum.
You’re the top!
You’re the Louvre Museum.
You’re a melody from a symphony by Strauss,
You’re a Bendel bonnet,
A Shakespeare’s sonnet,
You’re Mickey Mouse.
You’re the Nile.
You’re the Tow’r of Pisa.
You’re the smile on the Mona Lisa.
I’m a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
But if, baby, I’m the bottom, you’re the top!
You’re the top!
You’re a Waldorf salad.
You’re the top!
You’re a Berlin ballad.
You’re the baby grand of a lady and a gent,
You’re an Old Dutch master,
You’re Mrs. Astor,
You’re Pepsodent.
You’re romance,
You’re the steppes of Russia,
You’re the pants on a Roxy usher,
I’m a lazy lout, who’s just about to stop,
But if, baby, I’m the bottom
You’re the top.
The mention of a Berlin ballad brought a happy response from Irving Berlin himself. He wrote Cole a letter in which he inverted his own song into saying “Anything I can do you can do better.”
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Porter’s lyrics were so sharp and witty that they often invited parody. Noël Coward wrote a set of lyrics for “You’re the Top” and these lines from “Night and Day” were often imitated:
Night and day
Under the hide of me
There’s an, oh, such a hungry yearning burning inside of me.
Here is humorist Ring Lardner’s version:
Night and day
Under my dermis, dear,
There’s a spot just as hot as coffee kept in a thermos, dear.
* * *
Porter considered studying with Stravinsky, but perhaps it was for the best that it didn’t work out. Would “Begin the Beguine” have been as good a song with a Stravinsky treatment? I doubt it.
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VIDEO. Song writers are used to hearing their pieces with piano accompaniment or a pit band. What a treat then to hear them with an 80 piece symphony orchestra and chorus at the London Proms in Royal Albert Hall. The conductor is John Wilson.
We hear first Cole Porter’s “Another Op’nin’, Another Show.”
Then a lovely Hart lyric to a sweeping Rodgers waltz, “Falling in Love with Love.’’
Followed by one of most popular Rodgers and Hammerstein songs, “One Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific.
Ending with a rousing R & H anthem that announces its own name and show title.
CLICK ON THIS LINK FOR VIDEO: GIVE MY REGARDS TO BROADWAY
