“Writing with different composers is always a different psychological experience. Each one has his own approach to creation. To know their idiosyncracies and to be able to get the best out of each one is fascinating. Each composer brings out a different aspect in your work. Duke, with his very sophisticated music for that time, the late ’30s and ’40s, demanded a certain kind of lyric. Vernon’s particular personality also required that you talk to him in a certain way, that your criticism and objections be registered in a diplomatic way that would neither reject nor demolish him.
“Lots of times the composer will give you a whole tune, and if he’s sensitive to what will fit his melody for example, Harold Arlen is very sensitive to what will fit his melody and you give him a title or a first line, and if he doesn’t agree, he”ll tell you. But it’s the way he tells you, and how you respond . . . and what your coefficient of acceptability is toward criticism. That is what your relationships with all these men depend on.
“It’s diplomacy, it’s psychology, it’s a lot of psychiatry it’s knowing the person you’re dealing with, and the sensitivities of the two of you. Some writers can’t collaborate they are at each other’s throats all the time, hostile to one another because of that constant rejection that has to go on in your day-to-day work. Writing and creating is nothing more than a series of those rejections, or, rather, criticisms. And the man who knows that, the good writer, always feels that criticism is valid.”
Yip Harburg in They’re Playing Our Song , edited by Max Wilk. Atheneum, 1973, p. 230.
Yip consciously enjoyed the challenge of working with new composers. He even labeled himself a “chameleon”. He wanted to figure out the personal foibles and strengths of the personalities of his many collaborators.
Below is a composer-by-composer breakdown. The lifetime total includes unpublished compositions. In addition, there are many loose lyric sheets among Yip’s papers with no reference to a composer-collaborator, so we may never know exactly how many composers worked with him. There is some evidence that Yip wrote lyrics to George Gershwin’s music when they were both teenagers, long before Yip embarked on his career as a lyricist.
The total for Jay Gorney includes his input as arranger for all of the songs in the 1961 Broadway musical The Happiest Girl in the World , adapted from Jacques Offenbach tunes.
| COMPOSER | FIRST YEAR OF COLLABORATION | LIFETIME TOTAL |
|---|---|---|
| 1.Harold Arlen | 1932 | 155 |
| 2. Jay Gorney | 1929 | 111 |
| 3. Burton Lane | 1940 | 51 |
| 4. Vernon Duke | 1930 | 47 |
| 5. Jacques Offenbach | 1961 | 36 |
| 6. Sammy Fain | 1929 | 35 |
| 7. Jule Styne | 1967 | 30 |
| 8. Lewis Gensler | 1932 | 20 |
| 9. Larry Orenstein & Jeff Alexander | 1969 | 19 |
| 10. Jerome Kern | 1943 | 14 |
| 11. Earl Robinson | 1944 | 14 |
| 12. Philip Springer | 1979 | 14 |
| 13. John W. (Johnny) Green | 1930 | 10 |
| 14. Arthur Schwartz | 1930 | 10 |
| 15. Milt Okun | 1964 | 8 |
| 16. Senia Pokrass | 1933 | 6 |
| 17. Dana Suesse | 1933 | 5 |
| 18. Henry Souvaine | 1929 | 5 |
| 19. Milton Ager | 1931 | 5 |
| 20. Oscar Levant | 1931 | 4 |
| 21. Joseph Meyer | 1932 | 4 |
| 22. Ann Sternberg | 1969 | 4 |
| 23. Ralph Rainger | 1930 | 2 |
| 24. Lou Alter | 1931 | 2 |
| 25. Richard Myers | 1932 | 2 |
| 26. Roger Edens | 1933 | 2 |
| 27. Karl Hajos | 1935 | 2 |
| 28. Earl Brent | 1942 | 2 |
| 29. Richard Rodgers | 1930 | 1 |
| 30. Mario Bragiotti | 1931 | 1 |
| 31. Werner Heyman | 1931 | 1 |
| 32. Igor Borganoff | 1932 | 1 |
| 33. Emmerich Kalman | 1932 | 1 |
| 34. Morgan Lewis | 1934 | 1 |
| 35. Jean DeLettre | 1934 | 1 |
| 36. Maria Grever | 1934 | 1 |
| 37. Franz Waxman | 1935 | 1 |
| 38. Will Irwin | 1937 | 1 |
| 39. Herbert Stothart | 1938 | 1 |
| 40. Carl Sigman | 1941 | 1 |
| 41. Margery Cummings | 1942 | 1 |
| 42. Nick Acquaviva | 1959 | 1 |
| 43. James Van Heusen | 1978 | 1 |