Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Century's Finest Lyrics--a Celebration of Our Greatest Songwriters, a Rediscovery of Forgotten Masters, and an Appreciation of an [Hardcover]

Robert Gottlieb (Editor), Robert Kimball (Editor)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Gottlieb (editor, Reading Jazz) and Kimball (editor, The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin) have assembled 1000 popular American and English song texts dating from 1900 to 1975 and arranged them chronologically by lyricist's birth date. Focusing solely on theater and film songs, the editors profile more than 100 songwriters, including Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Yip Harburg, and Stephen Sondheim. Each entry details their musical contributions and three or more lyrics with verse(s) and refrain. Country, rock, folk, and blues numbers go unmentioned, as they would not have fit in this single volume. "One-hit wonders" are also listed at the back along with an index of song titles. The inclusion of lesser-known songs by major figures such as Irving Berlin or by little-remembered writers such as Mann Holiner or Sam Coslow seems to pad the volume rather than enhance its usefulness. Unfortunately, the title, too, is misleading: Reading Lyrics is more of a compilation than an interpretative work. This book is recommended, however, as a sanctioned print alternative to various lyric web sites for libraries serving a clientele seeking popular song texts and information.DBarry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Most people remember a song better than they remember a poem. During the 1900^-75 scope of this sterling anthology, remembering a song was remembering a poem. That span was the heyday of the classic American popular song, which re-expressed all the old emotions in language invigorated by the dialects of all the external and internal immigrants drawn to America's burgeoning industrial centers. The typical classic American popular song--any of the 1,000-plus examples editors Gottlieb and Kimball have chosen--is rife with those pnemonic aids par excellence, rhyme and wordplay. Accordingly, you could use the book for a party game, the object of which would be seeing who recalls the most songs and, beyond that, can sing them. With lyricists including all the superstars, from Cohan to Sondheim, and plenty whose songs' fame have outlived that of their names, such as Haven Gillespie ("Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town") and Edward Eliscu ("Without a Song"), the party could take all of a grand night for singing. Oh!--get a copy for the reference desk, too. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 736 pages
• Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (November 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375400818
• ISBN-13: 978-0375400810
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 1.5 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #536,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars S'Wonderful, October 10, 2001

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M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Century's Finest Lyrics--a Celebration of Our Greatest Songwriters, a Rediscovery of Forgotten Masters, and an Appreciation of an (Hardcover)

Finally! A book that not only places song lyrics within the realm of literature, but also contains those lyrics in their entirety, This is the most complete book of English and American lyrics around: It contains all the lyrics (other than a song sheet, where will you find refrain 4 of "The Lady is a Tramp?") to more than 1,000 songs from the late 19th century to 1975, including the prototypical works of Gershwin, Porter, Hart, Mercer, Comden and Green, Berlin, Fields, Cahn, and Strayhorn. Dozens of relatively less prodigious and famous lyricists are included as well.

The book is a dream for jazz lovers. With the complete lyric and verse of "Body and Soul" (for example), one can appreciate Billy Holiday's vocals or Coleman Hawkins' definitive sax, or--warn your housemates--sing along! From "Sweet Georgia Brown" (1925) to "All of Me" (1931) to "Peel Me a Grape" (1962), this is a rich compendium of the English language songbook.

The organization is somewhat confusing: Lyricists are ordered by date of birth. True, one glimpses the evolution of the form, but with little context or theory this presentation is often more confusing than illuminating. (Fortunately, there are capsule biographies as well as a brief but informative introduction.) Other tips to navigating the book: The Index of Songs contains all songs in alphabetical order, the year they were written, the source, if not a recording (e.g., show, nightclub act, film) and the singer most associated with the song. Unfortunately, there is no index of lyricists, so one must search the lengthy Table of Contents, or work backwards and find the lyricist through the Song Index.

Small matter. As far as I know, this is the only book of its kind. A wonderful reference, "Reading Lyrics" makes a wonderful gift for the shower singer, the jazz buff, or the poetry lover. Very highly recommended!

34 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Compendium of Popular Song Lyrics, December 21, 2000

By 

Dan Sherman (Alexandria, VA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Century's Finest Lyrics--a Celebration of Our Greatest Songwriters, a Rediscovery of Forgotten Masters, and an Appreciation of an (Hardcover)

This book pulls together something more than 1,000 sets of lyrics of the best known American popular songs from 1900 to 1975. It is a wide and well chosen selection that gives lots of coverage to well-known lyricists like Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart,Oscar Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim. It also provides lyrics for a lot of other well-known songs by less well-known lyricists. If you like American popular music, you will probably finding yourself lost in this book, looking and finding your particular favorite songs and going off to listening to some great recordings of the songs from which the lyrics are taken. The book is laid our well with clear print and with a good index.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent to have around when you can't remember the words!, January 11, 2004

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30-year old wallflower "Eric N Andrews" (West Lafayette, IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Century's Finest Lyrics--a Celebration of Our Greatest Songwriters, a Rediscovery of Forgotten Masters, and an Appreciation of an (Hardcover)

I've conquered music reviews & the occasional movie one, but I had yet to try my hand at a book review. However, with this book, I just had to write about it & alert people to this great collection of some of the greatest words ever put to music in history. Some may wonder why certain songs from a certain lyricist are the only ones represented, but I imagine the lyrics that have best stood the test of time or are truly representative of the greatest of the person's repertoire are what's included. For a complete collection of lyrics, most likely a composer will have something of the sort published somewhere, but READING LYRICS is an excellent taster for those wanting to dive in.

Most music lovers of my generation like to listen to music where lyrics take second place to rhythm or melody, with the volume of both enough to render such good words useless. READING LYRICS looks at the first 3 quarters of the last century, perhaps the stretch of time when you could still hear what was being sung & eventually get the lyrics etched into your brain enough to repeat them at will. Naturally, those songs from the annals of musical theatre take up a fair share of the book, but that after all was its golden age until maybe the second half of the 1900s, when popular music truly became "popular" & theatre became more of a higher art. Both genres are represented on READING LYRICS (although this review is far from comprehensive what with the hundreds of lyricists discussed in here).

Even the most famous & worthy of household name status of songwriters get an inventory in READING LYRICS. True superstars of songwriting like Ira Gershwin, Irving Berlin & Cole Porter are represented in READING LYRICS, although I imagine finding which songs to use was quite the struggle with all of their extensive outputs. However, all three helped expand the vocabulary of popular songwriting away from simple rhymes like "moon" with "June".

Gershwin couldn't be accused of following such methods, for time-honored classics like "But Not For Me", "Embraceable You", "Love Is Here To Stay" & "Someone To Watch Over Me" managed to be intelligent yet accessible at the same time. And that's just Ira's work with his brother George! Even after George's death, Ira kept on working with other collaborators, creating classics like "The Saga Of Jenny" (with Kurt Weill) & "I Can't Get Started" (with Vernon Duke).

Berlin was certainly more of a "people's songwriter" with lyrics that were easy to sing & remember, but by no means simplistic. Out of the thousands of songs he penned (both music & lyrics), "Supper Time" is perhaps the one to truly call Berlin's best, with its heartwrenching tale of prejudice against African-Americans written at a time when such racism was still a fact of life. In fact, Ethel Waters, who popularized the song, claimed it represented the Black experience better than any other song she sang. He may have also wrote the patriotic "God Bless America" (quite the statement from a Russian-born immigrant), but I think he never played into the hands of any specific politics & for that Berlin should be commended.

However, maybe THE classiest lyricist of all was (a Hoosier no less) Cole Porter, who, like Berlin, wrote both music & lyrics, which was no easy feat in that time. Of course, Porter was known for his extensive mastery of the English language in his music, with more internal rhymes than you can shake a stick at, thus making his songs both a challenge to sing & still contemporary even today. A great deal of Porter's songs rode on acerbic wit (like Stephen Sondheim's music of today), with a few notable examples like "It's De-Lovely" (to sing all of it, verses & refrains, would take all day), "Let's Do It" (which had "Let's Fall In Love" added to it so radio could play it), "Miss Otis Regrets" & "My Heart Belongs To Daddy" (its masochistic lyric is still a scorcher even now). But at the same time, Porter could be heartfelt when he wanted to, as proven by "True Love", "You'd Be So Nice To Come Home To", "Just One Of Those Things" & even "Love For Sale" (its bouts with censorship are legendary). Cole Porter's run-ins with the censors would fill a book in itself, but let's just say that in this day & age of outright profanities being used, Porter's way with words still retains its power to shock & amuse.

That's not even the half of what READING LYRICS does to recount the greatest of American popular songwriting. But because of space restrictions, I just thought I'd point out some of my personal favorites. Nevertheless, READING LYRICS still contains a wide range of lyricists, from the absolutely famous (Oscar Hammerstein II, Stephen Sondheim & Noel Coward) to the semi-famous waiting to be rediscovered (Frank Loesser, Johnny Mercer & Hoagy Carmichael) to ones whose songs may be more famous than their authors (too many to mention).

Each chapter in READING LYRICS features a short blurb on the songwriter's life & times, and their life's work with the occasional fun fact. For example, Jack Yellen's song "Happy Days Are Here Again" was adopted as FDR's campaign theme despite Yellen himself being a Republican. Maybe he was still grateful for the attention & the fact that the song became one of the most popular of the Depression era. But considering Yellen's politics, who knows if songs about wild women like "Hard-Hearted Hannah" & "Louisiana Lou [The Vampin' Lady]" really were what he thought about women & are all that popular with feminists today?

Anyhow, READING LYRICS is a good refresher course for anyone wanting to learn about popular music's golden age or, even better, for someone wanting to explore songwriting themselves. If a second volume is in the works, I'll be sure to put in my order for it soon enough!