Poems of the Week: Lyrics

The word lyric derives from the Greek lura, from which we get the word lyre for the musical instrument. This was a stringed instrument played with a plectrum, and was used to accompany songs or recitations. The adjective "lyrical" is applied to poetry, whether intended to be sung or not, expressing the writer’s emotions. In the plural, the word is commonly used to refer to the words of a song, and a lyricist is one skilled in writing these.

In these weekly articles, I have from time to time quoted from song lyrics; but not in any great depth. This is in part because nowadays we use the word poetry expressly for works that are not sung, although of course this was not the case historically. The Odes of Pindar (c. 522 – 438 BCE) were specifically written to be sung, or at the very least to be accompanied by music; and the itinerant medieval bards from whom we derive many of our current poetic forms would perform accompanying themselves with instruments resembling guitars. Several of the poems I have quoted from the plays of William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) were in fact sung in the play itself. For example, here is Ariel singing in The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
     Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
     Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
     Hark! now I hear them, - Ding-dong, bell.

The other reason is that many of the lyrics I would wish to quote are from relatively recent songs, and there are significant issues relating to copyright.

There is an interesting book on the topic: Reading Lyrics, by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball (Pantheon Books, New York, 2000). This contains over a thousand lyrics, from 1900 to 1975. I shall not be making direct use of this book in this week’s article, but it is a very useful source.

Perhaps the best-known nineteenth century figure whose work is at the borderline of song lyrics and poetry in our modern sense was Thomas Moore (1779 – 1852). He was born in Dublin, Ireland; and most of his work relates to Ireland. His major work in this area was Irish Melodies, written over the period 1807 – 1834. This is a group of 130 poems set to the music of Sir John Stevenson (1760 – 1833) and Moore himself. Stevenson was also born in Dublin, and Moore wrote a memorial poem for his friend, Silence is in Our Festal Halls; here is the first stanza:

Silence is in our festal halls
Sweet son of song! thy course is o’er;
In vain on thee sad Erin calls,
Her minstrel’s voice responds no more;
All silent as the Eolian shell
Sleeps at the close of some bright day,
When the sweet breeze, that waked its swell
At sunny morn, hath died away.

I have quoted a couple of his true lyrics before: Believe Me If All Those Endearing Young Charms and The Minstrel Boy. Here is another – The Harp That Once Through Tara’s Halls:

The harp that once through Tara's halls
The soul of music shed,
Now hangs as mute on Tara's walls
As if that soul were fled.
So sleeps the pride of former days,
So glory's thrill is o'er
And hearts that once beat high for praise
Now feel that pulse no more!

No more to chiefs and ladies bright
The harp of Tara swells;
The chord alone that breaks at night
Its tale of ruin tells.
Thus Freedom now so seldom wakes,
The only throb she gives
Is when some heart indignant breaks,
To show that still she lives.

During the nineteenth century songs were a frequent entertainment at all levels. The composer Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) wrote a very large number of songs during his very short lifetime, and these have been collected by John Reed in The Schubert Song Companion. Here is an extract from a review of the collection:

“Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828) composed hundreds of lieder, or art songs, beginning as early as 1810, at age 14, and continuing until his death in 1828. He was a prodigious composer, and in 1815 alone he composed 142 songs. Schubert's lieder define the genre. While he did not create the German lied, he certainly carried it to such a level of refinement that his name is forever linked with this type of music.

Lieder are merely solo songs accompanied usually by piano. What could be simpler? Yet, within this apparently restricted genre, Schubert composed such a wealth of material that one can explore his songs for an entire lifetime.”

The majority of his best-known songs were settings of poems by the German poets Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) and Friedrich Johann Christoph von Stiller (1759 – 1805). Many of the lyrics of Schubert’s songs have been translated into English, and our first poem of this week is an example from Goethe: Rose Among the Heather (the translation is by Natalia Macfarren).

The second major figure in German ‘art songs’ was Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856). He too wrote a large number of songs, and many were performed during his life and after by his wife, Clara, who was nine years his junior. He set to music many poems written by Christian Johann Heinrich Heine (1797 – 1856). Here is Thour’t Like A Lovely Flower; the translation is by ‘Edwards’ (I’m not all that wild on the translation, to be honest!):

A flow’ret thou resemblest,
So pure, and fair, and blest;
But when I view thee sorrow
Straight creepeth in my breast,
Upon thy snowy forehead
My hands I lay in pray’r,
Beseeching that God may keep thee,
So pure, so blest, so fair.

While art songs, in various forms, continued to be important, as the nineteenth century progressed songs from more generally popular media became more common, and in particular were increasingly published; finally, at the end of the century the gramophone was invented, and everyone could share in singing ‘popular songs’. What were then called operettas represented the upper end of the field; examples included works by Jacques Offenbach (for example, The Tales of Hoffman); Johann Strauss II (for example, Die Fledermaus) and Gilbert and Sullivan (for example, The Pirates of Penzance). The following description of this form is extracted from an article by Genevieve Thiers:

“The operetta can be traced to one particular manager, Jacques Offenbach. A talented composer, he had to deal with the strange sanctions placed on the theater of his day. The law in Paris at this time prohibited more than three characters per independent stage production, to prohibit independent managers from competing with state-sponsored productions in France. Offenbach created a formula that blended melody, vocals, dancing and comic operatic plots. It was a typical take on opera buffa, or a kind of operatic plot that mixes buffoonery with an opera score. His productions included dancing mutes and clowns, and in this way he presented full productions despite the limitations placed on him and his work.”

“His tunes were rapidly spread throughout Europe, rich with political satire and the ripe vocalizations of his star Hortense Schneider, a middle-age soprano with a difficult temper. A piece of comedy in a serious age, his works and spoofs of major dramas became the toast of Europe.”

“After Offenbach's death in 1880, another talented operetta composer stepped into the limelight, none other than the famous Johann Strauss II, the son of the Johann Strauss I”

“His first operetta was Die Fledermaus, a comic story of a lovesick married man. One can see in this work the theme of romantic misdemeanors made popular since the time of Mozart. In the tradition of Offenbach's operettas, his work was widely accepted and loved.”

“The British were the next to pick up the operetta tradition, and their most famous contributors were the team of Gilbert and Sullivan. Their work is a far cry from the three-voice operettas of Offenbach. Their casts feature large bands of singing pirates, lovesick maidens and happy crowds.”

The lower end of the musical spectrum of the time was what was called in England the Music Hall, and its analogues in other countries. The beginning of these came from the Licensing Act of 1737, that confined the production of legitimate plays to the two royal theaters—Drury Lane and Covent Garden. The demands for entertainment by the rising lower and middle classes were answered by song, dance, and acrobatics, and later by pantomime and comic skits and sketches provided by keepers of inns and taverns. The atmosphere, amidst eating and drinking, was boisterous and gay. Following the abolition of the royal-theater patents with the Theatre Regulation Act of 1843, drinking was banned in legitimate theaters, but allowed in "music halls," prompting many tavern owners to expand into larger rooms and to arrange their tables in front of a platform, where entertainment was supplied by singers, comics, and actors who recited monologues from famous plays. To keep the acts and the audience in order, a professional master of ceremonies, or chairman, presided from a table near the platform. Drinking was now kept to the rear of the hall.

With the addition of a proscenium arch over the platform, and wings, and a backstage, the hall grew into a theater, where audiences now came solely to hear professional entertainers. Between 1850 and 1870, Music Halls went up all over England, and variety shows became the most popular form of entertainment in the country. Although comedy, dance, magic, and other kinds of acts were all presented, popular songs were still the main attraction, and many music-hall singers, and their songs, became famous throughout the country. Marie Lloyd, Dan Leno, Vesta Tilley, George Robey, Harry Lauder, and many others toured Great Britain and the Continent. Some came to the United States as well.

In the early 1900s the building of very large, ornate halls such as the Hippodrome and the Coliseum, provided a stage for theatrical and musical celebrities to entertain working-class audiences with pastiches of their art. New York City also had its Hippodrome, as did Paris. Variety theaters like the English music hall flourished in cities throughout the United States. (Much of the above material is extracted from a more extensive article on jahsonic.com).

In the early days, the songs sung by the Music Hall performers – words and music – were written by the performers themselves. The second poem of this week is by a good example of a member of the traveling groups of entertainers who were hired by the Music Halls: Stanley Holloway (1890 – 1982). He was of a group sometimes called ‘monologists’, whose shtick is to deliver a solo narrative – often rhymed, but sometimes not – on a theme usually comic. In many ways, the present-day entertainer Eddie Izzard could be described as of this type, although his routines are longer. Woody Allen’s early routines are also similar, as are those of Bob Newhart. Stanley Holloway’s were generally rhymed, and while they were not songs in any sense of the word, it is not uncommon to hear them performed with muted support from a piano or guitar. The one I have chosen is Sam Small.

The next development was really an evolution – a combination of the increasing professionalism of the Music Hall concept, and an increasing desire to extend the audience for the light operas and operettas. These can be regarded as the threads that led to what we could call the ‘Broadway Musical’.

There is on the web an extensive description of the History of The Musical Stage, by John Kenrick, and most of the following information is drawn from there.

“The first musicals performed in America were British ballad operas – comic plays peppered with parodies of popular barroom ballads. (The songs often had to be adapted for opera-sized voices so they could be heard in theaters two centuries before the invention of electronic amplification.) Flora (or The Hob on the Wall) was staged in Charleston as early as 1735, and John Gay's satirical hit The Beggar's Opera made it to New York in the 1750s.”

“In The American Musical Stage Before 1800 (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1962, p. vii), Julian Mates claims that the first homegrown American musical was The Archers, a comic opera by William Dunlap and Benjamin Carr. It premiered in New York on April 18th, 1796 at the John Street Theatre. Based on the William Tell legend, its three performance run was followed by two nights in Boston. Co-author Dunlap also wrote the first published history of the American theatre, where the importance of this production may have been overstated.”

“Mates explains that the popular stage in America was a musical stage. Almost every production – even Shakespearean tragedies – included interpolated musical numbers, or threw in a few musical acts between other features. The popular musical theater forms included pantomimes and masques, but comic operas were the most widely seen form, with companies either in residence or touring all over the country. As early as 1796, New York's American Company staged 91 performances of 46 different musical works at the John Street Theater. They also staged dramas and comedies, but musical entertainments made up 45% of their repertoire. Surviving records suggest this was typical for major American theater companies at that time.”

“In 1866, two events set the course for the American musical theatre's future. The first (which is rarely noted) came in January, when a double bill entitled The Black Domino/Between You, Me and the Post became the first Broadway production to call itself a "musical comedy." Since no script or score survives we can't be sure what it really was, but the very use of the phrase "musical comedy" shows change was in the air.

The second big theatrical event of 1866 (which is very often noted) came in September. Some have called it the first Broadway musical -- which, as the paragraphs above prove, is uninformed nonsense. However, no one can deny that this production was America's first bona fide musical blockbuster.”

This was The Black Crook, written by Charles M. Barras (1826 – 1873). Barras objected to having his play ‘cheapened’ by the introduction of musical numbers, but was bought off by the promoter William Wheatley, who can be regarded as the inventor of the Broadway musical. The word ‘Black’ in the title has nothing to do with race, by the way; it was Black as in Black Magic – the plot was a rip off of Goethe’s Faust. Kenrick says that its success was based on lavish production numbers that kept the audiences distracted from “the inane plot and forgettable score”. Nothing changes!

The next names that appear are those of the composer Reginald DeKoven (1859 – 1920) and the librettist Harry B. Smith. DeKoven was very famous in his day as an opera composer – he wrote at least 13 – as well as the comic operas that are our subject. In 1903, the Lyric Theater on 42nd Street in New York was built for him. The Lyric saw many long runs of musical comedies and operettas such as Oscar Straus's The Chocolate Soldier (1909); The Firefly (1912), which marked the Broadway debuts of Rudolf Friml and Arthur Hammerstein; and the musical extravaganzas of Florenz Ziegfeld. Kenrick writes that “his melodies faded from public favor soon after he completed his longest-running hit, The Highwayman (1897 – 123 performances).” This may be true, but here is a lyric to a song written by Hoagland Howard “Hoagy” Carmichael (1899 – 1981), The Old Music Master, first sung by Dick Powell in True To Life (1943):

One night long ago by the light of the moon,
An old music master sat composing a tune,
His spirit was soaring and his heart full of joy,
When right out of no-where stepped a little colored boy

“You gotta jump it music master,
You gotta play that rhythm fast-er
You're never gonna get it played
On the Happy Cat Hit Parade.

You better tell your friend Beethoven,
And Mister Reginald DeKoven,
They better do the same as you,-
Or they're gonna be corny too.

Long about nineteen seventeen.
Jazz'll come up on the scene,
Then about nineteen thirty five,
You'll begin to hear swing, Boogie Woogie and Jive,

You gotta show that big broadcaster,
That you're a solid music master,
And you'll a-chieve posterity,
That's a bit of advice from me”.

The old music master simply sat there amazed,
As wide eyed and open mouthed he gazed, and he gazed,
“How can you be certain little boy, tell me how?”
“Because I was born, my friend, a hundred years from now”.

He hit a chord that rocked the spinet
And disappeared in the "infinite",
And up until the present day,
you can take it from me he's as right as can be,
Everything has happened that a way.

So at least DeKoven’s name was still known to Americans as late as 1943! In a frequently revived musical of his, Robin Hood, the song Oh Promise Me appears, and this has been a staple at weddings in America ever since.

Johnny Mercer (1909 – 1976) wrote the Old Music Master lyric, and we will have more to say about him later.

The other member of this duo was Harry Bache Smith (1860 – 1936). John Kenrick describes him as “one of the unsung giants in the development of the American musical. In a career spanning from 1887 to 1932, he wrote the librettos for 123 Broadway musicals. (By comparison, the great Oscar Hammerstein II wrote less than 50 shows).”

In the early 1900’s, while European imports continued to dominate, native American hits began to appear. L. Frank Baum (1856 – 1919) provided the book and lyrics for the musical version of The Wizard of Oz, which opened in 1903 and ran for 293 performances. Because the producers felt that a little dog would not be visible from the balcony, Toto was replaced by Dorothy’s pet cow Imogene.

Perhaps the real start of the truly American musical of a quality to compare with the imports arrived with the composer Jerome Kern (1886 – 1945). His career began by amending the scores of imported British musicals. This was necessary because moneyed English audiences seldom turned up for the first act, so the good bits were saved until after the interval. For the American audience, who turned up on time, the first act had to be strengthened. Kern did this for the British musical The Girl From Utah, writing, with the lyricist Herbert Reynolds, five new songs for the opening act.

Herbert Reynolds’s real name was M. F. Rourke; he was born in Manchester, England, in 1867. He did write one or two lyrics under his given name, for example My Baby’s Kiss (1897), with music by L. Peasley.

One of the Kern/Reynolds songs was They Didn’t Believe Me. The first chorus, sung by the male lead (Donald Brian on the opening night of August 14th, 1914) is:

And when I told them how beautiful you are,
They didn't believe me. They didn't believe me!
Your lips, your eyes, your cheeks, your hair,
Are in a class beyond compare,
You're the loveliest girl that one could see!
And when I tell them,
And I cert'nly am goin' to tell them,
That I'm the man whose wife one day you'll be.
They'll never believe me. They'll never believe me.
That from this great big world you've chosen me!

This song eclipsed everything in the original score, and made Jerome Kern “the hottest new composer on Broadway” as Kenrick says.

In 1917, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse joined Kern, and this led to even greater success because of the wit in his lyrics. P. G. Wodehouse has appeared in these pages before – you may remember his Good Gnus! However, although the lyrics enhanced the success, the major reason was Kern’s music.

The songwriter Irving Berlin (1888 – 1989) first achieved fame with a popular song, Alexander’s Ragtime Band, in 1911, and he contributed songs to Broadway musicals, notably Syncopated Walk for Watch Your Step in 1914.

Frederick Nolan in his book Lorenz Hart: A Poet on Broadway suggests that the golden age of the American musical began in September 1925 when four hits opened within four days.

Lorenz Hart was born in New York City on May 2, 1895, the older of two sons of Frieda and Max Hart. He graduated from Columbia Grammar School, and attended the Columbia School of Journalism. Hart, who spoke fluent German and was a descendant of the tragic poet Heinrich Heine, also supported himself by translating operettas and plays. In the late ‘teens a mutual friend introduce him to the composer Richard Rodgers. In 1930 the team left New York for Hollywood, but they were lured back to New York by legendary Broadway producer Billy Rose in 1935 to write the songs for his circus musical spectacular, JUMBO. Their score featured The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, My Romance and Little Girl Blue. Here are Hart’s lyrics to My Romance:

I won’t kiss your hand, madam,
crazy for you though I am.
I’ll never woo you on bended knee,
no madam, not me.
We don’t need that flowery fuss,
no sir, madam, not for us.

My romance doesn’t have to have a moon in the sky.
My romance doesn’t need a blue lagoon standing by.
No month of May, no twinkling stars,
no hideaway, no soft guitars.
My romance doesn’t need a castle rising in Spain
nor a dance to a constantly surprising refrain.
Wide awake I can make my most fantastic dreams come true.
My romance doesn’t need a thing but you.

Lorenz Hart died in 1943. Before his death, Rodgers had already begun working with a new lyricist, Oscar Hammerstein II, a classmate of Hart’s. Interestingly, Hart always liked to work by having the music first, and writing words to it; Hammerstein preferred to write the words first, and have Rodgers write music to fit – a practice that was followed by Gilbert and Sullivan (and by Bernie Taupin and Elton John).

Cole Porter (1891 – 1964) wrote both the words and music for his songs (Night and Day; From This Moment On, for example), as indeed did Irving Berlin most of the time. George Gershwin wrote the music, and his older brother Ira wrote the words.

You will have noticed that all the lyrics I have quoted here are rhymed, even though most poetry in the latter part of the twentieth century has been unrhymed; I will be discussing the reasons for this in a later article on rhyme. However, there are modern lyricists who write free verse lyrics: Bernie Taupin, who I have mentioned above, is a good example.

It would be easy to go on writing this article for ever, because we are now reaching the point in the narrative where many of the great lyricists are beginning to contribute. However, the Editor of The Mediadrome (she who must be obeyed) gets annoyed if I ramble on too long. I think I will revisit this theme in the future, though! This week, my final example is my personal favorite: Johnny Mercer. The following biographical notes are taken from the Song-Writer’s Hall of Fame.

“Ask anyone who writes lyrics. Johnny Mercer was a genius.

”He was born John Herndon Mercer on November 18, 1909 into an old Southern family in Savannah, Georgia. His father was a wealthy attorney with a flourishing real estate business, and young John was sent to a fashionable prep school, the Woodbury Forrest School in Virginia. However, when he was 17, his father's business collapsed, and his father found himself a million dollars in debt. Rather than declare bankruptcy, his father dedicated the rest of his life to paying off that debt, and suddenly young John Mercer, no longer able to go on to college, was on his way to New York City, hoping to make good as an actor.”

“In 1932, he won a singing contest and landed a job as singer with the Paul Whiteman Band. Whiteman introduced him to Hoagy Carmichael, and soon Mercer and Carmichael had a hit with "Lazybones" (1933). Composers quickly discovered his talent, and his career as a lyricist took off.”

”In 1961, he wrote "Moon River" (music by Henry Mancini) for the film Breakfast at Tiffany's, winning his third Academy Award. And the next year, he became the first songwriter to win a fourth Oscar, this time for the title song to the 1962 film Days of Wine and Roses (music again by Mancini).”

While working on a new musical in London with Andre Previn, Mercer learned that the headaches he had been having were due to a brain tumor. He died on June 25, 1976 in Los Angeles, California.

My third poem of this week is his lyrics for Hoagy Carmichael’s beautiful song, Skylark.

Finally, readers of this weekly ramble will know how much I admire Ernest Dowson’s poetry, and, as I mentioned above, Mercer wrote the words to a song by Henry Mancicni whose title is a quotation from Dowson, Days of Wine and Roses. Here is a fragment:

The lonely night discloses
just a passing breeze
filled with memories
Of the golden smile that introduced me to
The days of wine and roses and you.

I hope you have enjoyed this trip along the path of the lyricist from Shakespeare to Johnny Mercer, with a glance back to Pindar, and a glance forward to Bernie Taupin!