Each month, Jason Fortner spotlights one or more musical theatre composers and/or lyricists, offering his own unique perspective on the songwriting legends of musical theatre. Send your comments/questions on this column to happgood@aol.com.

This time around I want to share with you some of the brilliance of the late E.Y. Harburg, noted lyricist of FINIAN’S RAINBOW, THE WIZARD OF OZ, DARLING OF THE DAY, FLAHOOLEY and many other musicals. His full name was Edgar Yipsel Harburg and he was born on Manhattan's Lower East Side on April 8, 1896 and died on March 4, 1981, after a heart attack and subsequent traffic accident in Los Angeles.

In addition to these amazing lyrical musical theatre assignments, he also published two books of his decidedly liberal poetry. This month I want to share some of my favorite Yip Harburg poems with you.

The first is in honor of the New Year:

PROSPECTS FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Jovial Jan. and frivolous Feb.
Arrive with their sniffles and sneezes
March comes around
With its vaporized sound
Of rhonchial, bronchial wheezes.

April’s sweet showers are great for the flowers
But hell on the pelvis arthritic;
And May, on the wing
With her fevers of Spring,
Lays you out on the couch analytic.

June and her roses play havoc with noses,
And ditto with larynx allergic;
And jolly July
With her poisonous I-
Vy defies all your curses non-clergic.

And now, amigitos, comes Aug. with mosquitos-
(Oh heaven knows where she has kept ‘em)
And Aug. turns to Sept.
With her weeds still unswept
And Sept. goes to work on your septum.

Oct! is the sad sober cry for October
When psyches are fragile as tree leaves;
They see through the soot
That our fortunes, dear Brut-
Us, are not in the stars but the tea leaves.

Neurotic November creeps into December
With chilblains, depression and flu…
But the spirit says, “Blast
It! It’s Christmas at last,
And a Happy New Year to you!”

The next selection is his poetic view on Atheism:

ATHEIST

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree;

And only God who makes the tree
Also makes the fools like me.

But only fools like me, you see,
Can make a God, who makes a tree.

The next is about repentance, very timely at this yearly time of reflection and resolutions:

REPENT IN PLEASURE

A little secret sinning now and then,
Should not disturb the saintliest of men;
For when your life is spent, and sun has set,
It's easier to repent than to regret.

Here’s a reflection on Watergate, one of many Yip wrote during that period:

HISTORY LESSON

This we learn from Watergate:
That almost any creep’ll
Be glad to help the government
Overthrow the people.

Here’s a Harburg look at the creation of the Earth:

BACK TO THE DRAWING BOARD

God made the world in six days flat,
On the seventh, He said, "I'll rest,"
So He let the thing into orbit swing,
To give it a dry-run test.

A billion years went by, then He
Took a look at the whirling blob;
His spirits fell, as He shrugged, "Ah well,
It was only a six-day job."

Oh what a concise yet wry look at love:

COURTSHIP IN GREENWICH VILLAGE

Our days will be oh, so ecstatic,
Our nights will be oh, so exotic,
For I'm a neurotic erratic,
And you're an erratic erotic.

A little love advice:

INSCRIPTION ON A LIPSTICK

Oh, innocent victims of Cupid,
Remember this terse little verse;
To let a fool kiss you is stupid,
To let a kiss fool you is worse.

And a deeper self-reflection:

IRREVERENT HEART

My heart is like the willow
That bends, but never breaks.
It sighs when summer jilts her,
It sings when April wakes.

So you, who come a-smiling
With summer in your eyes,
Think not that your beguiling
Will take me by surprise.

My heart's prepared for aching
The moment you take wing.
But not, my friend, for breaking
While there's another spring.

So share my summer pillow,
Don't spare my autumn aches;
My heart is like the willow
That bends, but never breaks.

A sharp jab at the riches of the Catholic Church:

MIRACLE

We're wise to prestidigitators,
We're hip to all theatrics,
We know how rabbits turn to doves
In all the magic hat tricks,
But how did Mary's manger
Turn into the posh St. Patrick's?

Another sharp jab, this one aimed at the Pentagon:

FAIL SAFE

It's a hundred billion dollars
Every year at your expense,
For the Pentagon to gadget up
Our national defense.
But it's comforting to know that
In the up and coming war,
We'll be dying far more safely
Than we ever died before.

A quick look at adverbs, as seen by Mr. Harburg:

ADVERBS

WHERE and WHEN
Are lost in space.
THERE and THEN
Do not embrace.
So before we disappear
Come sweet NOW and kiss the HERE.

A funny view of Shakespeare:

SIXTEENTH-CENTURY DROPOUT

The Bard of Avon never went to college,
Never studied drama, grammar, art,
And yet could quote most every word of Shakespeare-
Practically by heart.

To conclude, I chose three poems that deal with his writing and his legacy… I hope you enjoy these as much as I do, for I find him brilliant in all his endeavors.

POSTERITY IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER

Why should I write for posterity?
What, if I may be free
To ask a ridiculous question,
Has posterity done for me?

WHEN THE MUSE IS AWAY FOR THE WEEKEND

Life is transient. Time is fleeting.
Dreams are drumbeats not worth repeating.
Something in me keeps repeating
Is this quatrain worth completing?

EPITAPH

I’ve whittled my wit,
And whipped my rhymes,
For a small obit
In the New York Times.
 

Selected videos of songs with lyrics by Yip Harburg