Creativity Quote by E. Y. Harburg

“Follow the fellow who follows a dream” is a rallying cry dressed up as a singable line. Harburg, best known for writing “Over the Rainbow,” understood that idealism sells best when it sounds like folk wisdom: a little rhymey, a little homespun, easy to repeat when you need courage and easier to remember than a manifesto.

The intent is less “be a dreamer” than “choose your leaders by their longing.” Harburg doesn’t tell you to chase your own dream; he tells you to trail the person already in motion. That’s a subtle shift from private ambition to social energy. Dreams become a kind of moral credential, proof that someone is oriented toward possibility rather than mere management. The alliteration and the near tongue-twister cadence (“follow the fellow who follows”) turns the idea into a march-step; you can hear a chorus picking it up.

The subtext is also a warning about charisma. The line flatters the dream-follower as inherently worth following, which is exactly how movements build momentum and how crowds outsource judgment. Harburg, a left-leaning songwriter who lived through the Depression, union battles, and the chill of the blacklist era, knew both sides of that coin: dreams can be the engine of solidarity, and they can be the marketing copy for a savior.

Context matters because Harburg wrote in an America where “dream” wasn’t just self-help branding; it was survival language during economic collapse and later a political liability when idealism looked suspicious. The quote works because it’s optimistic with teeth: it invites hope, but it quietly asks who gets to define the dream you’re marching behind.