Although we don’t often think of America as a land of poetry, our history is full of immortal poets: Emily Dickinson, Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., Poe and, the greatest of all 19th century bards, Walt Whitman. Robert Frost, T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams (also a physician), Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Ann Sexton, Marianne Moore, Maya Angelou and Robert Lowell, and many others, enriched the 20th.
It had not occurred to me that popular music writers—lyricists—were also poets until Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman in 1941) was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016. The Nobel Committee noted that Dylan “created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition.” Although I’ve always loved folk music and often listened to Pete Seeger, Joni Mitchell, John Denver, Woody Guthrie and, especially, Peter, Paul and Mary, I was not a big fan of Dylan. However, as I looked at the list of songs he had written, often performed by others—”Blowin’ in the Wind,” “The Times They Are a-Changin’”, “Mr. Tambourine Man,” and so many others—I recognized that I liked Dylan the writer/poet very much.
I also realized that the songs I loved even more than folk music—Broadway songs—were written by true poets: Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Lorenz Hart, Frank Loesser, Stephen Sondheim, Marvin Hamlisch, E.Y. Harburg, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer and countless others. I like some country-western music and have a special affection for Willie Nelson. Although I have some difficulty in enjoying punk, heavy-metal, hip-hop and rap, I have to mention some of today’s great talents, often cited for their wordsmithing skills, such as Sting, Taylor Swift, Kendrick Lamar (a Pulitzer Prize winner), Jay-Z, Eninem and others.
There are those that argue showtunes are not poetry. They say the lyrics are written for the music, with the structure of the orchestration often carrying the emotional weight of the song. A notable exception in the 19th century was William Schwenk Gilbert, of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan duo, who often wrote the verses first (The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance). In the
George and Ira Gershwin
Gershwin brothers’ team, Ira sometimes wrote the words that George later put to music (Porgy and Bess–poetry set to music as well as an opera–and Strike up the Band). In the enormously successful team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe (My Fair Lady, Camelot, Gigi, Brigadoon, Paint Your Wagon), Lerner typically wrote the lyrics first. Stephen Sondheim (Sweeney Todd, Company, A Little Night Music, Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George, and so many others) mostly wrote both music and lyrics as did Richard Rodgers for No Strings, the show he wrote after Hammerstein died. Before teaming with Hammerstein, Richard Rogers worked with Lorenz Hart (On Your Toes, Babes in Arms—which included “My Funny Valentine,” “The Lady is a Tramp” and “Where or When”) and the music came first. When they parted, Rodgers began composing the music for Hammerstein who almost always wrote the lyrics first (Oklahoma, Carousel, The King and I, The Sound of Music and so more). When Hammerstein died in 1960, Rodgers wrote both the music and lyrics for No Strings.
Critics also discount musical theater lyrics by pointing to the fact that show songs are constrained by the need to advance plot and establish character while fitting theatrical convention resulting in structural simpleicity. In response, it should be noted that writers like Hammerstein, Sondheim, Hart, and many others, employ complex rhyming, meter and imagery to rival any poet. What about Lennon and McCartney’s “A Day in the Life,” Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” or W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues?” Further, the structure of recognized poems varies greatly with little resemblance between Virgil and Shakespeare and Robert Frost and Allen Ginsberg (It is so much easier for me to read most song lyrics than to read the “beat” poets).
Since show tunes are primarily auditory and, in contrast, poetry requires reading, some discount the idea that songs are poems. This is not a powerful argument. Read aloud Tennyson’s “Ulysses” or Whitman’s “O Captain, my Captain.” Both are magnificent and, though never sung, decidedly melodic. Indeed, Walt Whitman is one of the most frequently set-to-music poets of all time, including classical and choral works (e.g. A Sea Symphony by Ralph Vaughan Williams, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d by Paul Hindemith and Five Poems by Walt Whitman by Ned Rorem) and contemporary adaptations (e.g. I Sing the Body Electric by Fame and Leaves of Grass by Nat Ruffin).
Walt Whitman
The songs of Franz Shubert (“lieder”) and other Europeans are clearly poetic. In America, the tradition of poetic lyrics was begun by Stephen Foster (1826-1864), known as the “father of American Music,” who, in his short life, gave us a wealth of memorable songs/poems. “Beautiful Dreamer” is deservedly the best know of his work, but he also penned “My Old Kentucky Home,” the official state song of Kentucky that you can hear played each year at the Kentucky Derby. “Oh, Susanna,” “Swanee River” and “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” are just a few of the more than 200 songs he wrote in his tragically short life
Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me,
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee,
Stephen Foster U.S. stamp
Sounds of the rude world heard in the day,
Lulld by the moonlight have all passed away!
Beautiful Dreamer sheet music
Beautiful dreamer, queen of my song,
List while I woo thee with soft melody,
Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, out on the sea,
Mermaids are chaunting the wild lorelie,
Over the streamlet vapors are borne,
Waiting to fade at the bright coming morn.
Beautiful dreamer, beam on my heart,
Een as the morn on the streamlet and sea,
Then will all clouds of sorrow depart,
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me!
Below are some other, more contemporary lyrics which more than satisfy the argument that show songs are poetry, although it is difficult to keep the music out of your head while you read the lyric. These, and other, musical theater lyrics enrich me just as traditional poetry does.
Lorenz Hart wrote “It Never entered My Mind” to Richard Rodgers’ music for the 1940 musical Higher and Higher:
I don’t care if there’s powder on my nose
I don’t care if my hairdo is in place
I’ve lost the very meaning of repose
I never put a mud pack on my face
Oh who would’ve thought that I walk in a daze now
I never go to shows at night
But just to matinee’s now
I see the show and home I go
Once I laughed when I heard you saying
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart
That I’d be playing solitaire
Uneasy in my easy chair
It never entered my mind
Once you told me I was mistaken
That I’d awaken with the sun
And order orange juice for one
It never entered my mind
You have what I lack myself
And now I even have to scratch my back myself
Once you warned me that if you scorned me
I’d sing the maiden’s prayer again
And wish that you were there again
To get into my hair again
It never entered my mind
Once you warned me that if you scorned me
I’d sing the maiden’s prayer again
And wish that you were there again
To get into my hair again
It never entered my mind
It never entered my mind
In Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser, wrote:
Frank Loesser
Velvet I can wish you for the color of your coat
And fortune smiling all along your way
But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
Mansions I can wish you, seven footmen all in red
And calling cards upon a silver tray
But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
Standing there, gazing at you
Full of the bloom of youth
…
Music I can wish you, merry music while you’re young
And wisdom when your hair has turned to gray
But more I cannot wish you than to wish you find your love
Your own true love this day
Cole Porter, 1939
Cole Porter’s music remains timeless, not least because of the elegant rhythm and rhymes. Porter was Broadway’s wittiest lyricist but he could also write exquisitely beautiful songs,such as “In the Still of Night,” “Everytime We Say Goodbye”,” Night and Day,” “So in Love” and “What is This Thing Called Love?” And, of course, there is “Begin the Beguine,” one of Porter’s most romantic and emotional lyrics, from the 1935 show Jubilee. The 1938 recording, by Artie Shaw and his band, became one of the best-selling records in history, immediately establishing the song as a classic. It’s a dance instruction, direction making music, a philosophic statement about the inseparability of music and memory and, at the end an emotional tour-de-force:
When they begin
the beguine
it brings back the sound
of music so tender
it brings back a night
of tropical splendor
it brings back a memory ever green
I’m with you once more
under the stars
and down by the shore
an orchestras playing
and even the palms
seem to be swaying
when they begin
the beguine
to live it again
is past all endeavor
except when that tune
clutches my heart
and there we are swearing to love forever
and promising never
never to part
What moments divine
what rapture serene
to clouds came along
to disperse the joys we had tasted
and now when I hear people curse the chance that was wasted
I know but too well what they mean
So don’t let them begin the beguine
let the love that was once a fire
remain an ember
let it sleep like the dead desire I only remember
when they begin the beguine
Oh yes let them begin the beguine
make them play
till the stars that were there before
return above you
till you whisper to me
once more darling I love you
and we suddenly know what heaven we’re in
when they begin
the beguine
Oscar Hammerstein II and Stephen Sondheim
When Stephen Sondheim was still a teenager, after his parents divorced, he moved with his mother to a place close to the Hammerstein farm in Pennsylvania. He was classmate of one of Hammerstein’s sons, Jimmy, and they spent considerable time together. Because Sondheim’s mother didn’t allow her former husband to see their son, Oscar Hammerstein became a father figure and their relationship, with Hammerstein as mentor, teacher and friend, remained strong until Hammerstein’s death.
Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics for West Side Story to Leonard Bernstein’s beautiful score, including “Somewhere”:
Somewhere, there’s a place for us
A time and place for us
Peace and quiet and open air
Wait for us
There’s a time for us
Someday a time for us
Time together with time to spare
Time to learn
Time to care
Someday, somewhere
We’ll find a new way of living
We’ll find a way of forgiving
…
There’s a place for us
A time and place for us
Hold my hand and we’re half-way there
Hold my hand
And I’ll take you there
Some how
Some day
Somewhere
Sondheim was a singular talent. His poetry is remarkable. Years after West Side Story, in Company, he wrote “Being Alive.”
Someone to hold you too close
Someone to hurt you too deep
Someone to sit in your chair
To ruin your sleep
That’s true, but there’s more than that
Is that all you think there is to it?
You’ve got so many reasons for not being with someone, but Robert
You haven’t got one good reason for being alone
Come on, you’re on to something, Bobby
You’re on to something
Someone to need you too much
Someone to know you too well
Someone to pull you up short
To put you through hell
You’re not a kid anymore, Robert
I don’t think you’ll ever be a kid again, kiddo
Hey, buddy, don’t be afraid that it won’t be perfect
The only thing to be afraid of really is that it won’t be
Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim and playwright James Lapine
Don’t stop now, keep going!
Someone you have to let in
Someone whose feelings you spare
Someone who, like it or not
Will want you to share
A little, a lot
And what does all that mean?
Robert, how do you know so much about it when you’ve never been there?
It’s much better living it than looking at it, Robert
Add ’em up, Bobby, add ’em up
Someone to crowd you with love
Someone to force you to care
Someone to make you come through
Who’ll always be there
As frightened as you of being alive
Being alive
Being alive
Being alive
…
Sondheim’s career spanned almost 70 years. He created many wonderful songs/poems for a very long list of Broadway hits, including those for which was just the lyricist (West Side Story, Gypsy, Do I Hear a Waltz?, Candide) and those for which he was composer and lyricist (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures, Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods and others).
Edward Kleban penned “What I did for Love” to Marvin Hamlisch’s music in Chorus Line, one of the most wonderful Broadway shows (the film version could not begin to capture the magic of the stage production). Kleban and Hamlisch were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Chorus Line.
Kiss today goodbye
The sweetness and the sorrow
Wish me luck, the same to you
But I can’t regret
What I did for love, what I did for love
Look, my eyes are dry
The gift was ours to borrow
It’s as if we always knew
And I won’t forget what I did for love
Composer Marvin Hamlisch and lyricist Edward Kleban
Gone
Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love’s what we’ll remember
Kiss today goodbye
And point me toward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Won’t forget, can’t regret
What I did for Love
Love is never gone
As we travel on
Love’s what we’ll remember
Kiss today goodbye
And point me toward tomorrow
We did what we had to do
Won’t forget, can’t regret
What I did for love
What I did for love
Joe Darion is barely known in the pantheon of great lyricists but he wrote the beautifully poetic “The Impossible Dream,” as well as the marvelous love song, “Dulcinea” for The Man of La Mancha (we had the great fortune to see the original production with Richard Kiley).
Richard Kiley as Don Quixote
To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong
To be better far than you are
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star
This is my quest, to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far
To be willing to give when there’s no more to give
To be willing to die so that honor and justice may live
And I know if I’ll only be true to this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm when I’m laid to my rest
And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.
Dulcinea:
I have dreamed thee too long
Never seen thee or touched thee but known thee with all of my heart
Half a prayer, half a song
Thou hast always been with me, though we have been always apart
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea
And thy name is like a prayer an angel whispers
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
If I reach out to thee
Do not tremble and shrink from the touch of my hand on thy hair
Let my fingers but see
Thou art warm and alive and no phantom to fade in the air
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
I have sought thee, sung thee, dreamed thee, Dulcinea
Now I’ve found thee, and the world shall know thy glory
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
I see heaven when I see thee, Dulcinea
And thy name is like a prayer an angel whispers
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
I have sought thee, sung thee, dreamed thee, Dulcinea
Now I’ve found thee, and the world shall know thy glory
Dulcinea, Dulcinea
Darion had previously written the words for some less than memorable popular songs, such as “Ricochet” and “Changing Partners,” as well as the show Shinbone Alley, which is a musical evocation of the archie and mehitabel free verse poems about Archy, a cockroach, and Mehitibel, a street cat, originally written by Don Marquis. Darion’s name is highly unlikely to be mentioned among such great lyricists and Porter, Loesser, Irving Berlin, Sondheim, Alan Jay Lerner, Fed Ebb, and so many others, but his great songs from The Man of La Mancha, especially “The Impossible Dream,” secures his place in the great American Song Book. Darion died in 2001 at the age of 90.
The songwriter whose work, whose lyrical and moving poetry, I admire and enjoy the most is Oscar Hammerstein, II.
Hammerstein regularly wove themes of tolerance, equality and human dignity into his work, most explicitly in “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught,” from South Pacific (1949). South Pacific takes place on a Polynesian island during World War II. Nellie Forbush, a U.S. Navy nurse, has learned that the man she loves and plans to marry, Emile Becque, a middle-aged French plantation owner, has two daughters from his Polynesion wife who died years before. Lieutenant Joseph Cable has fallen in love with the Polynesian Bloody Mary’s daughter, Liat. Nellie tells Emile she cannot marry him and Lt. Cable tells Bloody Mary he cannot marry Liat. Not able to comprehend, Emile asks Nellie and Cable why they have such prejudices. Cable, not fully understanding his own reaction, tells Emile racism is “not something you’re born with singing the plaintive “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught.”
You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear,
You’ve got to be taught from year to year,
It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear—
South Pacific original cast album
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a different shade—
You’ve got to be carefully taught.
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate—
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
You’ve got to be carefully taught!
I was cheated before
And I’m cheated again
By a mean little world
Of mean little men.
And the one chance for me
Is the life I know best.
To be on an island
And to hell with the rest.
I will cling to this island
Like a tree or a stone,
I will cling to this island
And be free—and alone.
Cable and Emile fly off to report on the movement of enemy forces at a different island but Cable is killed. While Emile is away, Nellie comes to love his children and she and Emile come together when he returns. Liat vows she will never marry anyone.
A great backlash followed the opening of South Pacific. “You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught” was rightly regarded as a powerful statement for interracial marriage in a time when that was unacceptable. Legislative challenges were based on charges of indecency and a supposed Communist agenda. Georgia lawmakers introduced a bill outlawing entertainment based on “an underlying philosophy inspired by Moscow.” (Yes, too many people in local and federal government are still that stupid). South Pacific debuted in 1949, almost twenty years before the
Ezio Pinza, Mary Martin and childen
1967 unanimous decision by the Supreme Court (Loving v Virginia) declared that laws banning interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
In 1950, South Pacific became the second musical to win the Pulitzer Prize, 18 years after George and Ira Gershwin’s Of Thee I Sing. In the 1930’s, the Pulitzer committee did not consider music as part of the literary award, so Ira was named but George was not. South Pacific was based on James Michener’s collection of stories, Tales of the South Pacific, which won the Pulitzer for fiction in 1948, and was the only show to earn the Pulitzer along with its’ source material. Rent was based on previously presented material, Puccini’s immortal opera La Boheme, which was composed in Italy before the Pulitzer was created. Rent’s composer, Jonathan Larson died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm the night before the opening performance and was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer months after the show opened. South Pacific was also groundbreaking in starring the renowned opera star, Ezio Pinza, as Emile, instead of a known Broadway performer.
Throughout his life, Hammerstein was unflinching in his support of racial tolerance, human dignity, love and the commonality of mankind. There can be no doubt he knew “alle Menschen werden Brüder” (all men become brothers) as expressed by Beethoven in his 1824 Ninth Symphony, using the poem by 1785 Friedrich Schiller, and that it influenced him.
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II (1895-1960) was born in Harlem, New York to theatrical manager William Hammerstein and his wife Alice. His grandfather was the German theater impresario Oscar Hammerstein I. William Hammerstein managed the Victoria theater and was the producer of vaudeville shows. When Oscar II was 19, his father died. William was opposed to his son’s desire to participate in the arts and wanted him to pursue a career in law. After graduating from Columbia University, he spent one year in the law school but had already performed in several Varsity shows as an undergraduate. After leaving law, the devoted himself completely to the theater.
Before joining Richard Rodgers, Hammerstein worked with other composers, including providing the book and lyrics for Jerome Kern’s Show Boat. “Make Believe” and “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man” are two of the unforgettable songs from this show about prejudice and tragic, unrequited love. The 1927 production was the first to include black and white performers on the same stage and, remarkably for the time, an interracial romance. “Ol’ Man River,” of course, is the most enduring, most poignant and most poetic of the songs.
Dere’s an old man called the Mississippi,
Dat’s the old man dat I’d like to be,
What does he care if the world’s got troubles,
What does he care if da land ain’t free?
Old Man River,
Dat Old Man River,
He mus’ know somepin’,
But don’t say nothin’
He just keeps rollin’
He just keeps on rollin’ along.
He don’t plant taters,
He don’t plant cotton,
And dem dat plant em’,
Is soon forgotten,
But old man river,
He jus keeps rollin’ along.
You an’ me,
We sweat an’ strain,
Body all achin’,
An’ wracked with pain,
Tote dat barge,
Lift dat bale,
Get a little drunk,
And ya lands in jail.
I get weary,
An’ sick of tryin’,
I’m tired of livin,’
And scared of dyin’,
But old man river,
He jus’ keeps rollin’ along.
Let me go ‘way from da Mississippi,
Let me go ‘way from da white man boss,
Show me dat stream called the river Jordan,
Dat’s the old stream dat I longs to cross.
Show Boat and South Pacific weren’t the only shows with one or more songs based on Hammerstein’s heartfelt and recurrent moral preoccupation.
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s first show together, the groundbreaking Oklahoma (1943) dealt with the importance of community and the acceptance of outsiders, especially the character of Jud Fry. The show established new and lasting patterns for Broadway musicals, including the use of both song and dance to convey the plot and to broaden the understanding of the characters. Prior to Oklahoma, songs were almost always a diversion from, or peripheral to, the story. In Oklahoma every song was firmly integrated into the plotline.
“You’ll Never Walk Alone,” from 1945’s Carousel is a stirring and inspirational evocation of solidarity and compassion. Although, like Oklahoma, this show was not specifically about issues of tolerance, the song has become renowned and beloved as a powerful message of human kinship.
In The King and I (1951) there is extensive consideration of cultural differences and human dignity. Tuptim, a slave girl of the King of Siam (now Thailand), received as a gift from the King of Burma (now Myanmar), becomes one of the Siam King’s many wives. She falls in love with Lun Than, a scholar who escorts her. Hammerstein doesn’t directly address an interracial relationship but slavery and absolute power are beautifully and unequivocally opposed in songs such as “My Lord and Master” and “We Kiss in a Shadow” as well as the ballet “The Small House of Uncle Thomas.”
I have dreamed that your arms are lovely,
I have dreamed what a joy you’ll be.
I have dreamed every word you whisper.
When you’re close,
Close to me.
How you look in the glow of evening
I have dreamed and enjoyed the view.
In these dreams I’ve loved you so
That by now I think I know
What it’s like to be loved by you,
I will love being loved by you.
We kiss in a shadow,
We hide from the moon,
Our meetings are few,
And over too soon.
We speak in a whisper,
Afraid to be heard;
When people are near,
We speak not a word.
Alone in our secret,
Together we sigh,
For one smiling day to be free
To kiss in the sunlight
And say to the sky:
Behold and believe what you see!
Behold how my lover loves me!”
Flower Drum Song (1958) deals with Chinese American immigrant experiences and questions of identity as well as conflicts based on differing cultures and generations).
The Sound of Music (1959) includes a strong anti-fascism/anti-Nazi message as well as subtle considerations of class status.
Not every Rodgers and Hammerstein show included a song dedicated to tolerance. There is no specific tolerance anthem in Oklahoma, Allegro, State Fair, Me and Juliet, Cinderella or Carousel. However, Hammerstein’s lyrics often dwelt on themes of racial tolerance, human dignity and the fraternity of all mankind. Anti-prejudice themes are most prominent in South Pacific, The King and I, and Flower Drum Song.
Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley
Two years after Hammerstein’s death, in March 1962, No Strings, the only show with both music and lyrics written by Richard Rodgers alone, opened on Broadway, starring two wonderful performers, Diahann Carroll and Richard Kiley. Kate and I saw it three months later, in the last week of June. We couldn’t afford to go away so our honeymoon week was spent in New York City, where we sublet an apartment in Stuyvesant Town so Kate could finish her last three months of nursing school at Lenox Hill Hospital and I could spend the summer in an externship in the Pathology department of the no-longer existing Naval Hospital in St. Albans, Queens. This is not written as a sad note to complain about two young people unable to afford a trip to celebrate their wedding. It was a wonderful week for the obvious reasons and also because we went to a Broadway show almost every night, including No Strings and I Can Get It for You Wholesale, the show that launched the career of Barbra Streisand. I soon realized that New York City is a grand place for a honeymoon and, at St. Albans, my thoughts of becoming a pathologist were reinforced.
No Strings was a big hit, running for 580 performances. It received six Tony Award nominations, winning three, including Diahann Carroll for Best Leading Actress, the first for an African American (I have previously written about my long-standing crush for the late Diahann Carroll (1935-2019); https://stephenageller.com/2018/05/01/diahann-carroll-jaguar-motor-cars-hillary-and-me/).
In No Strings, Barbara Woodruff (Carroll), a fashion model living in Paris, meets and falls in love with David Jordan (Richard Kiley), a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist plagued by “writer’s block,” who also lives in Paris. There are no specific references to race in the script and the female role could have been filled by a white actor without any rewriting. Rodgers felt that the casting spoke for itself and that there was no need for a special reference to race. To say that the casting was socially progressive at the time would be a gross understatement. The show opened in the midst of the civil rights demonstrations and more than a year before Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
No Strings is an excellent show, with many wonderful songs penned by Rodgers. In the end, David determines he can only work effectively back home in Maine and, still very much in love,
No Strings original cast album
they separate, leaving open the possibility of renewing their romance but realizing that it would be too difficult for them both to live “up North of Central Park,” meaning North of Harlem. I guess it is a testimony to some of the advances in society that No Strings has not been revived.
Let the snow come down before the sun comes up
When the sun goes down the kids are out
Maine is the main thing
Where’s Maine?
There’s a sidewalk symphony of song and shout
Let the lake and hills get frozen up
Up north of Central Park
Way down in Maine
One of the most beautiful and poetic songs ever written is the opening number, “The Sweetest Sounds,” sung on the two sides of the stage by Barbara and David before they meet:
The sweetest sounds I’ll ever hear
Are still inside my head
The kindest words I’ll ever know
Are waiting to be said
The most entrancing sight of all
Is yet for me to see
And the dearest love in all the world
Is waiting somewhere for me
Is waiting somewhere, somewhere for me
…
Did I convince you that songs are poetry? I omitted so many pieces that are champagne for the mind, that dance on the lips, that are vivid examples. “Send in the Clowns,” by Sondheim. “The Music of the Night” from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, written by Charles Hart. “Not While I’m Around” from Sweeney Todd, another Sondheim gem. Sondheim also wrote the exquisitely beautiful “Children will Listen” for Into the Woods. “Stars,” the haunting revelation by Inspector Javert, in Les Misérables, by Herbert Kretzmer after the original French version by Claude-Michel Schönberg. Fantin’s aria of lost innocence in the same show, “I dreamed a dream.” Hammerstein’s “My Favorite Things” from The Sound of Music. Also “Climb Ev’ry Mountain.” And hundreds more …
Almost everyone knows “As Time Goes By,” from one of the greatest films ever made, Casablanca, but it was first heard in a 1931 Broadway production, Everybody’s Welcome, words and music by Herman Hupfield.
Do you know “Speak Low’ from 1943’s One Touch of Venus, lyrics written by Ogden Nash? Nash was a master of comic verse (“The Bronx, No thonx”) but he was dead-serious for this show and “Speak Low” is exquisite, moving and pure poetry. If there is one show I was too young to see but wish I had, it is One Touch of Venus. It’s the retelling of the Pygmalion myth. In this instance, a department store statue comes to life when a Rodney, a barber, kisses a statue of Venus and she comes to life. The music was by Kurt Weill and starred the marvelous Mary Martin (South Pacific, Peter Pan, The Sound of Music). I never saw her in person but, even on the television screen, she was mesmerizing. In 1989, she received the Kennedy Center Honors. The movie version starred Ava Gardner as Venus.
Speak Low
When you speak love
Our summer day withers away
Too soon, too soon
Speak Low
When you speak love
Our moment is swift, like ships adrift
Westward depart, too soon
Speak Low
Darling, Speak Low
Love is a spark, lost in the dark
Too soon, too soon
I feel wherever I go
That tomorrow is near
Tomorrow is here
And always too soon
Time is so old
And love so brief
Love is pure gold
And time of beef
We’re late, darling
We’re late
The curtain descends, everything ends
Too soon, too soon
I wait, darling
I wait
Will you speak low to me, speak love to me
And soon
I wait, darling
I wait
Will you speak low to me, slow to me
Oh please just don’t say no to me
Let it flow to me, slow to me, soon
Most people will recognize “September Song,” lyrics by Maxwell Anderson who was mostly a serious and renowned playwright, with marvelous music by Kurt Weill. Anderson was enormously successful as a playwright, a poet, journalist and lyricist. Some of his plays were written as free verse. Did you ever hear Jimmy Durante sing this? Or Walton Huston, who introduced the song in the 1938 play, Knickerbocker Holiday?
When I was a young man courting the girls
I played me a waiting game
If a maid refused me with tossing curls
I’d let the old Earth take a couple of whirls
While I plied her with tears in place of pearls
And as time came around she came my way
As time came around she came
But it’s a long, long while from May to December
And the days grow short when you reach September
Maxwell Anderson, 1938
And the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
And I haven’t got time for waiting game
And the wine dwindles down to a precious brew
September, November,
And these few vintage years I’d share with you
Those vintage years I’d share with you
But it’s a long, long while from May to December
And the days grow short when you reach September
And I have lost one tooth and i walk a little lame
And I haven’t got time for waiting game
And the days turn to gold as they grow few
September, November
And these few golden days I’d spend with you
These golden days I’d spend with you
When you meet with the young men early in Spring
They court you in song and rhyme
They woo you with words and a clover ring
But if you examine the goods they bring
They have little to offer, but the songs they sing
And a plentiful waste of time of day
A plentiful waste of time
But it’s a long, long while from May to December
Will the clover ring last till you reach September
And I’m not quite equipped for the waiting game
But I have a little money and I have a little fame
And the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And these few precious days I’d spend with you
These precious days I’d spend with you
When I hear “September Song,” I also think of “It was a Very Good Year,” words and music by Earvin Drake. Originally written for the Kingston Trio, Sinatra made it famous.
If you put together a list of the most beautiful and poetic songs, the names of Sondheim and Hammerstein will be particularly prominent. Kurt Weill, the composer, will also come up many times. Before Hitler forced him out of Germany, Weill wrote The Threepenny Opera and The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogonny. In America, in addition to Knickerbocker Holiday and One Touch of Venus, he wrote the music for Lady in the Dark, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Street Scene (awarded the first Tony award for best original score), and other hit shows. Back to lyricists: don’t forget Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Paul Simon, Johnny Cash, Brian Wilson and thousands more. John Denver, tragically killed in a plane crash when he was only 53, wrote the words and music for “Rocky Mountain High,” “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” “Perhaps Love,” and “Annie’s Song,” and co-wrote “Take me Home, Country Roads” and “Sunshine on My Shoulders.” He said he conceived “Annie’s Song” when he was on a ski lift for just a few minutes.
You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again
Come, let me love you
Let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter
John Denver
Let me die in your arms
Let me lay down beside you
Let me always be with you
Come, let me love you
Come love me again
Let me give my life to you
Come, let me love you
Come love me again
You fill up my senses
Like a night in a forest
Like the mountains in springtime
Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses
Come fill me again
Because this essay was prompted by again hearing some Hammerstein songs, it appropriately cited music for the stage. However, we have neglected some of the most beautiful and poetic lyrics ever written that first appeared in a film. “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz, was written by E.Y. “Yip” Harburg. Judy Garland’s performance in this marvelous 1939 movie has never been matched.
Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow” in The Wizard of Oz
Jimmy Cricket and Pinocchio
In Pinocchio, Jimmy Cricket (voiced by Cliff Edwards) introduces Ned Washington’s “When You Wish Upon a Star,” perhaps the most beautiful of all movie songs. Disney films have also given us “Someday My Prince Will Come” (Larry Morey) in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, “Colors of the Wind” (Stephen Schwartz) in Pocahontas, “Circle of Life” (Tim Rice) in The Lion King, “Beauty and the Beast (Howard Ashman) in Beauty and the Beast and countless others. Ned Washington also wrote the emotionally powerful “Baby Mine” for Dumbo.
Other unforgettable, decidedly poetic songs from the silver screen include Johnny Mercer’s “Moon River,” (Breakfast at Tiffany’s), Paul Simon’s “Mrs.Robinson” from The Graduate, Will Jennings “My Heart Will Go On” (Titanic), “Streets of Philadelphia,” by Bruce Springsteen (Philadelphia) Hal David’s “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams (Despicable Me 2), and, what some people have called the second national anthem, “New York, New York” by Fred Ebb in the film New York, New York, introduced by Liza Minelli but notably later sung by Frank Sinatra.
Ira Gershwin’s marvelous song, “The Man That got Away,” is also a marvelous poem. If you’ve never seen Judy Garland’s rendition of this music in
Judy Garland singing “The Man That Got Away”
1954’s A Star is Born, you’ve missed the greatest jazz performance on screen. I have seen it many, many times and never tire of it. The music was by Harold Arlen, who also wrote “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” and “Get Happy,” two of the many songs Garland used over and over again in her concert appearances.
The night is bitter,
The stars have lost their glitter,
The winds grow colder,
And suddenly you’re older
And all because of
The man that got away.
No more his eager call,
The writing’s on the wall,
The dreams you dreamed have all
Gone astray.
The man that won you
Has run off and undone you.
That great beginning
Has seen its final inning,
Don’t know what happened
It’s all a crazy game.
No more that all-time thrill
For you’ve been through the mill,
And never a new love will
Be the same.
Good riddance, good-bye.
Every trick of his you’re on to –
But fools will be fools and where’s he gone to?
The road gets rougher,
It’s lonelier and tougher.
With hope you burn up,
Tomorrow he may turn up.
There’s just no letup
The livelong night and day.
Ever since this world began
There is nothing sadder than
A one-man woman
Looking for the man
The man that got away . . .
Poetry and song are historically inseparable. The epic poetry of Homer was originally sung. The Psalms of the Bible are songs. Some poetry anthologies have included lyrics alongside traditional poetry. Are all lyrics poetic? Of course not, but innumerable show tune lyrics rise to the level of poetry and are as satisfying to read aloud as to hear performed. This blog post would go on to approach infinity if I knew them all and were able to list them.
Finally, I am reminded of the statement by Eugene McCarthy, Wisconsin Senator but also a published poet, who was an early and vociferous opponent to the Vietnam War. No one who lived in that era can forget the thrill of listening to McCarthy speak. He once said:
Eugene McCarthy
No one who is insensitive to poetry and song can have respect for learning, and no one who has no respect for learning can have real respect for justice, and no one who does not respect justice can, in fact, manifest a try love for his county.
P.S. As with much of my writing, our daughter, Jennifer Lee Geller, was critic, editor and proof-reader par excellence.
June 3, 2026 at 10:04 am
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