E. Y. Harburg Biography Quotes 10 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
E. Y. Harburg, born Isidore Hochberg in 1896, grew up on New York City's Lower East Side, the child of Yiddish-speaking immigrants. The energy of the streets and the cadences of Yiddish theater shaped his ear for language and humor. He attended Townsend Harris Hall, an accelerated public high school, and then the City College of New York, where he deepened a lifelong friendship with Ira Gershwin. Already a voracious reader with a gift for rhyme, he gravitated to poetry and satire, absorbing influences that would later animate his lyrics with wit, compassion, and social conscience. His childhood nickname, "Yip", eventually found its way into his professional signature as E. Y. Harburg.

From Business Setback to Songwriting
After college, Harburg worked outside the arts, including a stint co-owning an electrical appliance company. The company's collapse during the Great Depression was a turning point. Encouraged by his old friend Ira Gershwin, he entered the world of professional songwriting. Through Gershwin, Harburg met composer Jay Gorney. Their collaboration produced "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" in 1932, a searing anthem of the Depression. Gorney's music, paired with Harburg's stark, humane lyric, captured disillusionment and empathy in equal measure and established Harburg's reputation.

Hollywood and The Wizard of Oz
Harburg soon wrote for stage and screen, finding a frequent and fruitful partner in composer Harold Arlen. With Arlen he contributed to The Wizard of Oz (1939), writing lyrics that married fantasy to emotional truth. "Over the Rainbow", introduced by Judy Garland, became one of the century's defining songs and earned the Academy Award for Best Original Song. The score also produced "If I Only Had a Brain", "We're Off to See the Wizard", and "Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead", numbers that demonstrated Harburg's knack for character-driven rhyme and playful, purposeful wordcraft. Working within MGM's studio system alongside producers such as Arthur Freed, he refined the art of integrating song, story, and character.

Broadway and Political Satire
Harburg's Broadway work kept pace with his film success and often made his convictions explicit. With composer Burton Lane and his frequent book collaborator Fred Saidy, he created Finian's Rainbow (1947), a folk-fantasy that satirized racism and get-rich-quick capitalism. Its score yielded standards like "Old Devil Moon" and "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" while its narrative argued for tolerance and economic fairness. Earlier, with Arlen, he had written Bloomer Girl (1944), a story set amid abolitionist ferment that folded progressive themes into a popular musical. Later, he and Arlen reunited for Jamaica (1957), a calypso-tinged show starring Lena Horne, which charmed audiences while prodding at consumerism and colonial attitudes.

Standards Beyond the Stage
Harburg's lyrics enriched the American songbook far beyond any single show. With Vernon Duke he penned "April in Paris", a marvel of elegant simplicity. With Harold Arlen and Billy Rose he fashioned "It's Only a Paper Moon", a sly meditation on make-believe that became a jazz staple. For film comedies and musical features he supplied comic gems like "Lydia the Tattooed Lady", immortalized by Groucho Marx. He also contributed tender ballads such as "Happiness Is a Thing Called Joe", further evidence of his range from satire to sentiment.

Blacklisting and Resilience
The early 1950s brought political headwinds. Harburg's outspoken liberal voice and his insistence that songs could address social issues made him a target in the era's anti-communist fervor. He was blacklisted from motion pictures and television, curtailing his work in those media. Even as doors closed, he continued to write for the stage and to collaborate with colleagues like Burton Lane and Fred Saidy, keeping his pen sharp and his humor undimmed. The episode deepened his belief that art should challenge conformity and give dignity to ordinary people.

Craft, Voice, and Themes
Harburg's craft blended colloquial American speech with the compressed wit of light verse. His rhymes often carried double meanings, balancing laughter and seriousness. Characters who longed, doubted, or dreamed found effortless expression in his lines, and he relished turning a satiric edge against cant and cruelty. Whether chronicling a down-and-out worker in "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" or tracing a teenager's yearning in "Over the Rainbow", he gave voice to hope without sentimentality. Musically, he trusted his collaborators, Harold Arlen's blues-inflected harmonies, Burton Lane's bright melodicism, Jay Gorney's tuneful restraint, to let his words sing naturally.

Publications and Later Work
Beyond theater and film, Harburg published volumes of poetic light verse and epigrams, including Rhymes for the Irreverent and At This Point in Rhyme. These books distilled the same skeptical humor that animated his lyrics, tackling politics, piety, and pretension with brisk, memorable turns of phrase. He remained active in concerts and revues devoted to his catalog, working with performers and conductors who valued the integrity of his words and the humane spirit behind them.

Personal Connections
Harburg's life in music was sustained by friendships and partnerships. Ira Gershwin's guidance helped open the professional door. Collaborations with Jay Gorney, Harold Arlen, Burton Lane, Fred Saidy, Vernon Duke, and Billy Rose shaped decades of work across media. Performers such as Judy Garland and Lena Horne became inseparable from his songs, carrying them to audiences around the world. He also mentored younger writers and defended the place of social commentary in popular entertainment, arguing that a good joke or a supple rhyme could illuminate moral questions.

Final Years and Legacy
Harburg died in 1981, closing a career that stretched from Tin Pan Alley through Hollywood's golden age and Broadway's mid-century flowering. He left hundreds of lyrics, many canonical, and a model of how popular song can balance delight with conscience. In his hands, rhyme was more than ornament: it was a democratic art, clear enough to be sung by everyone and sharp enough to matter. His songs continue to be recorded and revived, reminding listeners that imagination can open a path "over the rainbow", and that satire can, with a smile, speak truth to power.

Our collection contains 10 quotes who is written by Y. Harburg, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Motivational - Music - Dark Humor - Equality.

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