Lyricist Yip Harburg and the Great Depression

By David J. Hahn
New York, NY

There were two things in the news last month that really moved me. First, the talk of a looming second Great Depression and second, the death of Studs Terkel.

It was about 3 months ago that I came across a tattered copy of Terkel’s book Hard Times – a collection of stories about the Great Depression – while stopped at a roadside book sale. The book had sat on my shelf for a few months, but with the news this week I thought it was time to take it down and start reading.

I found a little section about the lyricist Yip Harburg that I wanted to share. Harburg wrote the lyrics to Finian’s Rainbow, The Wizard of Oz and others. In this excerpt Harburg is talking about how the Great Depression impacted his music career.

I never liked the idea of living on scallions in a left band garret. I like writing in comfort. So I went into business, a classmate and I. I thought I’d retire in a year or two. And a thing called Collapse, bango! socked everything out. All I had left was a pencil.

Luckily, I had a friend named Ira Gershwin, and he said to me, “You’ve got your pencil. Get your rhyming dictionary and go to work.” I did. There was nothing else to do. I was doing light verse at the time, writing a poem here and there for ten bucks a crack. It was an era when kids at college were interested in light verse and ballads and sonnets. This is the early Thirties.

I was relieved when the Crash came. I was released. Being in business was something I detested. When I found that I could sell a song or a poem, I became me, I became alive. Other people didn’t see it that way. They were throwing themselves out of windows.

Someone who lost money found that his life was gone. When I lost my possessions, I found my creativity. I felt I was being born for the first time. So for me the world became beautiful.

With the Crash, I realized that the greatest fantasy of all was business. The only realistic way of making a living was versifying. Living off your imagination.

E. Y. (Yip) Harburg from Hard Times by Studs Terkel

About the author

David J. Hahn is a music director and pianist in New York City. He co-founded MusicianWages.com with Cameron Mizell in 2008. His writing have been published in the International Musician, union trade papers and featured on the Huffington Post and About.com. Find out more at his website and follow him on Twitter.

All posts by David J. Hahn | Forum Profile

I think a lot of musicians, myself included, make excuses early on to avoid doing what they love because they’re scared of failing. The most common excuse is probably, “My day job pays too much, I can’t quit.” (Of course, I wouldn’t argue with this excuse if it had less to do with money and more to do with health insurance, which is unfortunate.) But once you get fired, or finally quit, or just make that leap of faith, I think you find a way to make things happen.

Thanks for sharing this one.

Cameron Mizell
11/12/2008