Quotes

[Defending his songs and style in a changing world] What's wrong with sweetness and light? It's been around quite awhile.

Whenever I get an idea for a song, even before jotting down the notes, I can hear it in the orchestra, I can smell it in the scenery, I can see the kind of actor who will sing it, and I am aware of an audience listening to it.

[Referring toOscar Hammerstein IIand the song "It Might As Well Be Spring" ] He gave me a lyric. And when he gives me a lyric, I write music.

Frank Loesseras a man is a book in himself. He was happy; he was strong; he had enormous peaks and frightening depths. This is only to say that he was intensely human. With it all, he was a living refutation of the theory that composers are not very bright. Frank was a first-rate businessman without ever having to resort to tricks. He knew his own value, and he recognized the value of others.

The well-tempered songwriter creates his own sort of "scherzo" --not necessarily fast, but surely joyous. It is difficult to listen to "Standing on the Corner" without wanting to giggle at, not just at the words, but at the music. This gifted man [Frank Loesser] could wander off the conventional 32-bar reservation without getting lost. Thus, "I Believe in You" is a full-fledged operatic aria with a beat. It is also a statement of self-faith. Was Frank singing to himself? He was entitled to do it.

[on first meetingLorenz Hart] He was violent on the subject of rhyming in songs, feeling that the public was capable of understanding better things than the current monosyllabic juxtaposition of "slush" and "mush". It made great good sense, and I was enchanted by this little man and his ideas. I left Hart's house having acquired in one afternoon a career, a partner, a best friend and a source of permanent irritation.

[Lorenz Hart], almost anyone will agree, was a genius at lyric construction, at rhyming, at finding the offbeat way of expressing himself. He had a somewhat sardonic view of the world that can be found occasionally in his love songs and in his satirical numbers. But Larry was also a kind, gentle, generous little guy, and these traits, too, may be found in some of his memorable lyrics. Working with him, however, did present problems, since he had to be literally trapped into putting pen to paper--and then only after hearing a melody that stimulated him.

In many ways, a song-writing partnership is like a marriage. Apart from just liking each other, a lyricist and a composer should be able to spend long periods of time together - around the clock if need be - without getting on each other's nerves. Their goals, outlooks, and basic philosophies should be similar. They should have strong convictions, but no man should ever insist that his way alone is the right way. A member of a team should even be so in tune with his partner's work habits that he must be almost able to anticipate the other's next move. In short, the men should work together in such close harmony that the song they create is accepted as a spontaneous emotional expression.

[onCole Porter's songwriting style] It is surely one of the ironies of the musical theatre that despite the abundance of Jewish composers, the one who has written the most enduring "Jewish" music should be an Episcopalian millionaire who was born on a farm in Peru, Indiana.

A song is a lot of things. But, first of all, a song is the voice of its time. Setting words to music gives them weight, makes then somehow easier to say, and it helps them to be remembered. It may be that that we can sing what we often cannot say, whether it be from shyness, fear, lack of the right words or the passion or dramatic gift to express them. More souls have rallied to more causes by the strains of music than by straining rhetoric.

In many respects 'Pal Joey' forced the musical theatre to wear long pants for the first time.

[on composing songs for Hollywood studios in the 1930s] One of their pet procedures was to assign four or five different songwriters to the same spot in the same picture and then to take the song they liked the best. So you found yourself working in competition with other writers. They did it to Larry Hart and me, to everybody, even to Jerry Kern - and if they would do that to Kern, for God's sake!...this was sheer suicide for a composer.

[on Oscar Hammerstein] As far as his work with me was concerned, Oscar always wrote about the things that affected him deeply. What was truly remarkable was his never-ending ability to find new ways of revealing how he felt about three interrelated themes - nature, music and love. In "Oh, what a beautiful morning", the first song we wrote together for 'Oklahoma!', Oscar described an idyllic summer day on a farm when "the sounds of the earth are like music".