Reading Lyrics: More Than 1,000 of the Twentieth Century's Finest Song Lyrics

by Robert Kimball

Book Overview

A comprehensive anthology bringing together more than one thousand of the best American and English song lyrics of the twentieth century; an extraordinary celebration of a unique art form and an indispensable reference work and history that celebrates one of the twentieth century's most enduring and cherished legacies. Reading Lyrics begins with the first masters of the colloquial phrase, including George M. Cohan ("Give My Regards to Broadway"),...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375400818
• ISBN13: 9780375400810
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 736 Pages
• Weight: 2.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 7.0" x 9.7"

Customer Reviews

Excellent to have around when you can't remember the words!

I've conquered music reviews & the occasional movie one, but I had yet to try my hand at a book review. However, with this book, I just had to write about it & alert people to this great collection of some of the greatest words ever put to music in history. Some may wonder why certain songs from a certain lyricist are the only ones represented, but I imagine the lyrics that have best stood the test of time or are truly representative of the greatest of the person's repertoire are what's included. For a complete collection of lyrics, most likely a composer will have something of the sort published somewhere, but READING LYRICS is an excellent taster for those wanting to dive in.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 stat

another triumph for american songwriting

i defy you to go thru this volume and not shake your head in disbelief. while anyone reading this page will be familiar with the likes of berlin or mercer or porter or the like, you will be astounded by the number of great songs, both familiar and new, that were writen by names youve never known. jack yellen? haven gillespie? irving kahal? who the blazes were they? well, yellen gave us "aint she sweet?" and "happy days are here again"; gillespie "you go to my head" and "santa claus is coming to town"; kahal "i'll be seeing you" and "when i take my sugar to tea". oh yes, btw, they all had more standards to their credit. as other reviewers have said, this is a book you dont ust read, you SING! messrs. kimball & gottlieb are to be commended -- and id bet a volume 2 would be just as filled with gems.

S'Wonderful

Finally! A book that not only places song lyrics within the realm of literature, but also contains those lyrics in their entirety, This is the most complete book of English and American lyrics around: It contains all the lyrics (other than a song sheet, where will you find refrain 4 of "The Lady is a Tramp?") to more than 1,000 songs from the late 19th century to 1975, including the prototypical works of Gershwin, Porter, Hart, Mercer, Comden and Green, Berlin, Fields, Cahn, and Strayhorn. Dozens of relatively less prodigious and famous lyricists are included as well.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!

You don't read this book...you SING it!

You don't merely READ this wonderful collection. If you love standards, you'll SING it! The concept of READING LYRICS is so appealing, one wonders why it took so long to find its way into print. You don't need to be a senior citizen to recognize that these songs document an era when love was a respectable commodity. It also proves, elegaically, that they really DON'T write 'em the way they used to. An encyclopedia and indispensable collection you'll return to again and again.

Great Compendium of Popular Song Lyrics

This book pulls together something more than 1,000 sets of lyrics of the best known American popular songs from 1900 to 1975. It is a wide and well chosen selection that gives lots of coverage to well-known lyricists like Ira Gershwin, Lorenz Hart,Oscar Hammerstein, and Stephen Sondheim. It also provides lyrics for a lot of other well-known songs by less well-known lyricists. If you like American popular music, you will probably finding yourself lost in this book, looking and finding your particular favorite songs and going off to listening to some great recordings of the songs from which the lyrics are taken. The book is laid our well with clear print and with a good index.