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The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin
50 photographs in text.
414 pages, Hardcover
Published November 16, 1993
About the author
Ira Gershwin
207 books22 followersIra Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century.
With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," and the opera Porgy and Bess.
The success the brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. However, his mastery of songwriting continued after the early death of George; and he wrote further hit songs with composers Jerome Kern ("Long Ago (And Far Away)", Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen.
His critically-acclaimed book Lyrics on Several Occasions of 1959, an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song.
With George he wrote more than a dozen Broadway shows, featuring songs such as "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "The Man I Love" and "Someone to Watch Over Me," and the opera Porgy and Bess.
The success the brothers had with their collaborative works has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. However, his mastery of songwriting continued after the early death of George; and he wrote further hit songs with composers Jerome Kern ("Long Ago (And Far Away)", Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen.
His critically-acclaimed book Lyrics on Several Occasions of 1959, an amalgam of autobiography and annotated anthology, is an important source for studying the art of the lyricist in the golden age of American popular song.
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May 8, 2009
Now this, this is how you compile a book of lyrics. Comprehensive, chronological, chock full of the trivia of who did what and when, and better still, coming complete with commentary. In fact, what Kimball has done (with the Gershwins’ blessing) is to fully interpolate Ira’s own notes from Lyrics on Several Occasions, making this book the definitive compilation of his life’s work and thoughts. The book is also illustrated throughout with stills from each of the stage productions, films, and life.
As a lyricist, Ira Gershwin was prolific – there are over 700 songs here. However, he lacked the consistent touch of contemporaries Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Oscar Hammerstein and other fellow collaborators of George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, Harold Arlen, and Kurt Weill. In fact, one of the things that makes reading this collection so fascinating is to witness the way Ira’s art and craft developed. On average, Ira managed one hit or less per show (keeping in mind Ira’s famous tunesmith partners), which helps to explain why so few of the Gershwin collaboration shows are revived, or if revived, re-assembled to swap out the (now literally) unsung numbers with those more broadly familiar. As someone who used to hew to a personal rule not to buy any record that didn’t have at least three tracks I knew I’d like, I can certainly understand why Girl Crazy, Porgy and Bess, and Lady in the Dark are the only shows apart from the three satires (whose libretti are uniformly strong, despite relatively lesser-known scores) remaining in modern theatrical repertoire.
Along these lines, it’s telling that despite the overwhelming volume of content in the book, the cover art repeats the same small fraction of titles 5 times running. Mentioning only shows with standards, Ira’s roughly 30 hits can generously be listed as follows: “(I’ll Build a) Stairway to Paradise” (For Goodness Sake, 1922); “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Oh, Lady Be Good!” and “The Man I Love” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924, though “The Man I Love” was actually dropped from this and at least two other shows before finally surfacing three and six years later, respectively, in the two incarnations of Strike Up the Band); “Sweet and Low-Down” (Tip-Toes, 1925); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (from Oh, Kay!, 1926); “Strike Up the Band” (1927); “Funny Face,” “’S Wonderful,” and “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (Funny Face, 1927); “I’ve Got a Crush on You” (Treasure Girl, 1928); “Bidin’ My Time,” “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “But Not For Me,” (Girl Crazy, 1930); “I Got Plenty o’ Nuthin’,” “Bess, You is My Woman Now,” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (Porgy and Bess, 1935, noting that the lyrics of many other Porgy classics, including “Summertime,” were actually not by Ira but by librettist Dubose, which is why I don't get to list or count them here); “I Can’t Get Started” (Ziegfeld Follies of 1936); “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (Shall We Dance, 1937); “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (A Damsel in Distress, 1937); “Love is Here to Stay” (The Goldwyn Follies, 1938); “Tchaikowsky,” “The Saga of Jenny,” “My Ship,” and “It’s Never Too Late to Mendelssohn” (Lady in the Dark, 1941); “Long Ago and Far Away” (Cover Girl, 1944); “You’re Far Too Near Me” (The Firebrand of Florence, 1945); “In Our United State” (Give A Girl A Break, 1953); and “The Man That Got Away” (A Star is Born, 1954).
It’s stunning to note that household name and Library of Congress pillar Ira Gershwin has a batting record (4%) that doesn’t get him to AA ball and barely nets him a double CD. In light of this, sheer volume is clearly a good way to assure a reputation. Of course, the fact that a song doesn’t enter the “Great American Songbook” (whatever that is, tunes that Ella Sinatra recorded, maybe?), doesn’t render it weak. Whether or not you recognize the songs and can hear the right accompaniments in your head, you see Ira’s craft mature slowly but surely from his first banal attempts in 1917 (“The ceremony was over, and all was happy and gay. The blushing bride and her lover to the steps did wend their way,” from “You May Throw All the Rice You Desire” or “When you and me first meet-a, my heart he lose a beat. For, Oh! You look so sweet-a, you drive me off my feet” from “Bambino”) until he settles in around 1926 with “Someone to Watch Over Me.” His creative apogee runs from this time to about 1941, after which his work starts going into slow decline (or at least his inspiration seems more spotty). This is not dry reading, by any stretch of the imagination.
To begin with, you’d have to be completely humorless not to appreciate the cleverness and fun of the libretti for Strike Up the Band (mocking warmongering), Of Thee I Sing (a Pulitzer winner that mocks politics), and Let ‘Em Eat Cake (the Pulitzer sequel that mocks extremism), each of which remains sadly poignant and timely. Getting past this significant output, alone sufficient to put Ira in the first rank of 20th century lyricists, at least a quarter and maybe a half of these lyrics are excellent, moving, entertaining, what have you. Take this bit of lyrical banter between a country couple and a city slicker:
Striking similarities to other writers’ works emerge and it’s fun to consider the likely cross-pollination of influences. For example, Fred Astaire introduced Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (“There may be trouble ahead, but… before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance, let's face the music and dance.”) in 1936’s Follow the Fleet. The very next year, here’s Astaire with the Gershwin’s rendition of the title song to Shall We Dance: “Life is short; we’re growing older. Don’t you be an also ran. You’d better dance, little lady! Dance, little man! Dance whenever you can!” This struck me as an even more desperate and frenzied call to action, and Fred should know; after all they can’t take that away from him.
Then there’s the Cole Porter influence, which most notably emerges whenever Gershwin leaves his predilection for idiomatic speech and simple cadences of rhyming couplets for witty catalogs of intellectual trivia. For example, a song like “I’m a Poached Egg, ” which was originally written for Rosalie in 1928, but ultimately modified to appear in the Ray Walston film, Kiss Me, Stupid as late as 1964 practically cannot be read without reference to a classic Porterism like “You’re the Top,” and there are five full columns of this lyric, to boot. A small sampling commingling a bit from 1928 with unused material written in 1963:
As a lyricist, Ira Gershwin was prolific – there are over 700 songs here. However, he lacked the consistent touch of contemporaries Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, Johnny Mercer, Oscar Hammerstein and other fellow collaborators of George Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Vernon Duke, Harold Arlen, and Kurt Weill. In fact, one of the things that makes reading this collection so fascinating is to witness the way Ira’s art and craft developed. On average, Ira managed one hit or less per show (keeping in mind Ira’s famous tunesmith partners), which helps to explain why so few of the Gershwin collaboration shows are revived, or if revived, re-assembled to swap out the (now literally) unsung numbers with those more broadly familiar. As someone who used to hew to a personal rule not to buy any record that didn’t have at least three tracks I knew I’d like, I can certainly understand why Girl Crazy, Porgy and Bess, and Lady in the Dark are the only shows apart from the three satires (whose libretti are uniformly strong, despite relatively lesser-known scores) remaining in modern theatrical repertoire.
Along these lines, it’s telling that despite the overwhelming volume of content in the book, the cover art repeats the same small fraction of titles 5 times running. Mentioning only shows with standards, Ira’s roughly 30 hits can generously be listed as follows: “(I’ll Build a) Stairway to Paradise” (For Goodness Sake, 1922); “Fascinating Rhythm,” “Oh, Lady Be Good!” and “The Man I Love” (Lady, Be Good!, 1924, though “The Man I Love” was actually dropped from this and at least two other shows before finally surfacing three and six years later, respectively, in the two incarnations of Strike Up the Band); “Sweet and Low-Down” (Tip-Toes, 1925); “Someone to Watch Over Me” (from Oh, Kay!, 1926); “Strike Up the Band” (1927); “Funny Face,” “’S Wonderful,” and “How Long Has This Been Going On?” (Funny Face, 1927); “I’ve Got a Crush on You” (Treasure Girl, 1928); “Bidin’ My Time,” “Embraceable You,” “I Got Rhythm,” and “But Not For Me,” (Girl Crazy, 1930); “I Got Plenty o’ Nuthin’,” “Bess, You is My Woman Now,” and “It Ain’t Necessarily So” (Porgy and Bess, 1935, noting that the lyrics of many other Porgy classics, including “Summertime,” were actually not by Ira but by librettist Dubose, which is why I don't get to list or count them here); “I Can’t Get Started” (Ziegfeld Follies of 1936); “Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off” and “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” (Shall We Dance, 1937); “Nice Work If You Can Get It” (A Damsel in Distress, 1937); “Love is Here to Stay” (The Goldwyn Follies, 1938); “Tchaikowsky,” “The Saga of Jenny,” “My Ship,” and “It’s Never Too Late to Mendelssohn” (Lady in the Dark, 1941); “Long Ago and Far Away” (Cover Girl, 1944); “You’re Far Too Near Me” (The Firebrand of Florence, 1945); “In Our United State” (Give A Girl A Break, 1953); and “The Man That Got Away” (A Star is Born, 1954).
It’s stunning to note that household name and Library of Congress pillar Ira Gershwin has a batting record (4%) that doesn’t get him to AA ball and barely nets him a double CD. In light of this, sheer volume is clearly a good way to assure a reputation. Of course, the fact that a song doesn’t enter the “Great American Songbook” (whatever that is, tunes that Ella Sinatra recorded, maybe?), doesn’t render it weak. Whether or not you recognize the songs and can hear the right accompaniments in your head, you see Ira’s craft mature slowly but surely from his first banal attempts in 1917 (“The ceremony was over, and all was happy and gay. The blushing bride and her lover to the steps did wend their way,” from “You May Throw All the Rice You Desire” or “When you and me first meet-a, my heart he lose a beat. For, Oh! You look so sweet-a, you drive me off my feet” from “Bambino”) until he settles in around 1926 with “Someone to Watch Over Me.” His creative apogee runs from this time to about 1941, after which his work starts going into slow decline (or at least his inspiration seems more spotty). This is not dry reading, by any stretch of the imagination.
To begin with, you’d have to be completely humorless not to appreciate the cleverness and fun of the libretti for Strike Up the Band (mocking warmongering), Of Thee I Sing (a Pulitzer winner that mocks politics), and Let ‘Em Eat Cake (the Pulitzer sequel that mocks extremism), each of which remains sadly poignant and timely. Getting past this significant output, alone sufficient to put Ira in the first rank of 20th century lyricists, at least a quarter and maybe a half of these lyrics are excellent, moving, entertaining, what have you. Take this bit of lyrical banter between a country couple and a city slicker:
“A weekend in the country-- trees in the orchard call.”Or consider this little comic gem:
“When you’ve examined one tree, then you’ve examined them all.”
“A weekend in the country-- happily we endorse.
Come, get your share of nature’s bounty! Ride the trail around the county.”
“I am no Canadian Mountie – why do I need a horse?” (excerpted from “Weekend in the Country,” The Barkleys of Broadway, p. 360)
Rabelais, De Maupassant, Bocaccio, Balzac –“The One That Got Away” is famously brutal of course (“Good riddance, good-bye! Ev’ry trick of hers you’re on to. But, fools will be fools – and where’s she gone to?”), but it’s by no means anomalous among Gershwin’s collection for gut-punching power. Here’s another excerpt from Barkleys, entitled “There is No Music” which went unused. Intended I think for Ginger Rogers, it just bruises the heart.
We’ve reached the bitter end.
We’ve staged the final fade-out;
Those happy days are played out
When a Lesbian was an islander and not your wife’s best friend. (excerpted from “Quartet Erotica,” Life Begins at 8:40, p. 225)
Stars without glitter,Intermittent inclusion of Gershwin’s observations enliven some of the songs you probably don’t know and which may not be very good (it’s great fun to read Ira’s cringing recollection of writing, “You’re the nerts!” for one thing), and along the way we’re also treated to his attitude to writing and rhyming (gotta have exact syllabic rhymes, or the song just won’t "chime" Ira tells us), his perfectionism (writing and rewriting and re-rewriting “Long Ago and Far Away,” more than six separate lyrics with unique titles which combined comes across as an exercise in traditional Chinese poetic structure), his disdain for performers and publishers who dare deviate from his original intent (apparently using denial of copyright licensing as a club), and his experience as to what comes off in performance (his narrated handwringing as to whether Gertrude Lawrence could successfully top Danny Kaye’s fame-making, tongue-twisting, speed run of Russian composers’ names with her follow-up number being simply fascinating). In addition (and oddly serendipitous for me as I’m in the middle of my readings on the history of the Oxford English Dictionary), it turns out Ira has lots to say about words and sounds, contemplating the origins and usage of lyrics, burthen, refrain, chorus, and nonsense filler like “fa la la,” “hey diddle diddle,” and “scatty-wah,” including quotes from his sources.
Sun without gold;
Nightfall is bitter,
Endless and cold.
Silent the city,
Silent the sea –
There is no music for me….
Once there was music,
Joyous and free;
Now salty tears glisten;
All night I listen,
But there’s no music for me.
Striking similarities to other writers’ works emerge and it’s fun to consider the likely cross-pollination of influences. For example, Fred Astaire introduced Irving Berlin’s “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” (“There may be trouble ahead, but… before they ask us to pay the bill and while we still have the chance, let's face the music and dance.”) in 1936’s Follow the Fleet. The very next year, here’s Astaire with the Gershwin’s rendition of the title song to Shall We Dance: “Life is short; we’re growing older. Don’t you be an also ran. You’d better dance, little lady! Dance, little man! Dance whenever you can!” This struck me as an even more desperate and frenzied call to action, and Fred should know; after all they can’t take that away from him.
Then there’s the Cole Porter influence, which most notably emerges whenever Gershwin leaves his predilection for idiomatic speech and simple cadences of rhyming couplets for witty catalogs of intellectual trivia. For example, a song like “I’m a Poached Egg, ” which was originally written for Rosalie in 1928, but ultimately modified to appear in the Ray Walston film, Kiss Me, Stupid as late as 1964 practically cannot be read without reference to a classic Porterism like “You’re the Top,” and there are five full columns of this lyric, to boot. A small sampling commingling a bit from 1928 with unused material written in 1963:
When I’m without youReally, this book has everything, even for browsers. Thank goodness Ira lived into the mid-1980s; would he had lived and been productive even longer. A closing thought: if you do pick up this book, check out the references to furs on pp. 341-342 that would make PETA scream, among this book's plentiful joys. As Ira wrote in at least three (and maybe four) songs, “Who could ask for anything more?” Oh, rats. Now I’m going to have to go back and look that one up.
I’m a Gilbert without a triple rhyme
Rockefeller without a silver dime
Cal. without that golden clime
Greenwich Village without a bottle of gin
Jascha Heifetz without a violin
I’m a headache without an aspirin
English – how have you been
Summer resort without a man
Russia without a 5 year plan…
I am Groucho
Without a single brother,
I’m a Whistler
Who never had a mother,
I’m Othello
When you look at another –
But what can I do?
May 17, 2013
I was given this absolutely massive book for being a volunteer at my local library. At first I didn't think much of it and stowed it away on a shelf just for looks. I was impressed by the shear size of it though. The other day I went to read some poetry and instead decided to flip through this book. I have enjoyed reading these lyrics more than I can begin to express. I have listened to George Gershwin enough to know that while it's good to have as a part of my intellectual repertoire it's not my go to type of music. I let that shrowed over what great things I found in this book from his brother Ira. He writes with such simplicity about even more simple things that it's easy to overlook him as being a poetical lyricist. Ira has made the jump into my top 3 favorite artists. I never could have imagined that Ira Gershwin would edge out Jimi Hendrix and John Prine.
"Put me to the test
And I'll climb you the highest mountain,
Or I'll swim you Radio City fountain.
Put me to the test
And I'll bag you a Bengal Tiger
Or a crocodile from the river Nigel.
It'll be a trifle
But I'll jump from the Eiffel
If that is what my lady adores.
Just make your request,
Lady, put me to the test
And anything that you desire is yours!"
Just easy going good stuff!
"Put me to the test
And I'll climb you the highest mountain,
Or I'll swim you Radio City fountain.
Put me to the test
And I'll bag you a Bengal Tiger
Or a crocodile from the river Nigel.
It'll be a trifle
But I'll jump from the Eiffel
If that is what my lady adores.
Just make your request,
Lady, put me to the test
And anything that you desire is yours!"
Just easy going good stuff!
Shelved as 'keep-in-mind'
May 1, 2011Added 5/1/11.
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