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Note on GRANTMAKING

March 2025. The Yip Harburg Lyrics Foundation has suspended all grantmaking until further notice. Thank you for your interest.

Quote of the Month

Below are two versions of Yip’s story about how he came to write the classic lyric to “April in Paris” (from Walk a Little Faster, 1932; music by Vernon Duke)

I was doing a show called Walk a Little Faster and they had a bright, new, young scenic designer for the show named Boris Aronson, and it was his first show. Boris Aronson had designed — he was in love with Paris and designed the most beautiful set. Tender. Sensitive. And the lyric writer was called in to write a song for this set. You think you’ve got troubles. Well, I’d never been to Paris, but I’d passed Cook’s tour in my day, and I went in and got a couple of brochures. I read them. But, after all, isn’t every place that you’ve never been to, that you live in your imagination, more splendid than the place itself? This was it.

Yip Harburg. Inaugural presentation of “Lyrics and Lyricists” series at the 92nd Street Y, New York City, Dec. 13, 1970

[A]t that time we were having revues and the revues were something…I can’t possibly describe to you now. That was before television and really before talking movies. … This was a scene, Paris. I was given … a situation. Paris. A girl in Paris. What do you write about? Well, shall I write about “Oh, beautiful spring?” Shall I… What is a new way of attacking it? Well, I felt somebody who’s never been in love goes to Paris and for the first time WANTS to be in love.

Yip Harburg, to Jim Morske. The American Musical Theatre, June 18, 1961, WCBS-TV, New York, New York.

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Home
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Home
Yip Harburg LYRICS Foundation
EMPIRE STATE COLLEGE & YIP
Who is Yip
Yip’s Work
YIP News
Contact
Connect
LICENSING