On June 29, 2026 art the funeral service for legendary music producer Clive Davis at Manhattan Central Synagogue in New York City, Rabbi Angela Buchdahl told the audience that she learned from Davis's children that the song their father most admired that he had no hand in producing or promoting was the Yip … Continue Reading ››
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“Over the Rainbow” at City Hall
On January 1, 2026 singer/actor Mandy Patinkin, with students from the Public School 22 Chorus, sang the Yip Harburg-Harold Arlen classic "Over the Rainbow" at the inauguration ceremony for Zohran Mamdani, newly elected Mayor of New York City. The Chorus also sang the song at the close of the 83rd … Continue Reading ››
“Oz” manuscripts added to Library of Congress
On August 25, 2025 the Library of Congress announced the acquisition of “rare music and lyric sketches from composer Harold Arlen and lyricist E.Y. ‘Yip’ Harburg, who collaborated on the song score to the iconic 1939 film The Wizard of Oz.” They are now part of the Library’s Harold Arlen Collection. The … Continue Reading ››
IRA GERSHWIN: A LIFE IN WORDS
Lyricist Ira Gershwin, Yip's friend since their high school days together beginning in 1910, is now the subject of the first-ever biography devoted to Ira's life, Ira Gershwin: A Life in Words. Author Michael Owen, using archival sources including Ira's own words, creates a rich portrait of the lesser-known brother … Continue Reading ››
HAROLD ARLEN AND HIS SONGS
Coming from Oxford University Press on July 26, 2024, Harold Arlen and His Songs by Walter Frisch is the first comprehensive book about the music of one of the great song composers of the twentieth century. Arlen was Yip Harburg’s most frequent composer-collaborator (they wrote over 150 songs together from 1932 to … Continue Reading ››
Over the Rainbow: The Life and Rhymes of Yip Harburg
Over the Rainbow: The Life and Rhymes of Yip Harburg by Stuart Stotts was released in paperback in September 2015 by Big Valley Press. It is also available as a Kindle book.
HUFFINGTON POST: ERNIE HARBURG REMINISCES ABOUT YIP
On Aug. 6, 2015 the Huffington Post published "Lyricist Yip Harburg's Son Ernie: How My Dad Inspired Me to Become a Scientist" by Mike Sigman based on an essay by Ernie entitled "Yip and I."
The Yip Harburg Songbook
The Yip Harburg Songbook. Piano/vocal sheets to 34 songs including "Over the Rainbow," "It's Only a Paper Moon," "April in Paris," "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady," "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" "Old Devil Moon," and an illustrated introductory essay by Stephen Holden. Hal Leonard Publishers, 2009.
Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz?
Who Put the Rainbow in The Wizard of Oz? Yip Harburg, Lyricist. by Harold Meyerson and Ernie Harburg. 454 pages, black-and-white and color illustrations. University of Michigan Press, 1993. Paperback edition, 1995.
Harriet Alonso. Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist
Harriet Alonso. Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist. Wesleyan University Press, 2012. 305 pages, with illustrations. This interview-based biography is, in the author's words, "a study of the lyrical world of Yip Harburg, as told largely by Yip himself through interviews, speeches, song lyrics, and poems."
