Reading Lyrics: More Than a Thousand of the Century's Finest Lyrics [Hardcover]

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!

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!