Ron Drew's Music Page - Activities

Singing - South Shields Amateur Operatic Society

Chapter 5.3 - Snippets of Chorus Lines

• From Issue No3 (August 1996)

• 'Waxing Lyrical', a contribution from John (Mac) Mcloughlin, brought the thoughts of our readers to the contribution given by the oft forgotten lyricist to some of our well known tunes. He writes............

"How often have you heard the songs "Moon River" or "Memories" and been able to to say who wrote the words?

Shirley Bassey must have sung "Big Spender" hundreds of times but can you recall if she has ever mentioned who wrote the lyrics? This supreme lyricist was a lady - yes a lady - who also wrote the words to "I'm in the Mood for Love", "Pick Yourself Up", "Sunny Side of the Street", "The way you Look Tonight" and "A Fine Romance" amongst others.

You would think that anyone who has written the words to "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?", "April in Paris" and "It's only an Paper Moon" deserves to be well known. More so as he was also the lyricist for "The Wizard of Oz" and that fine musical "Finian's Rainbow". If you're a Marx Brothers fan it's even better, since he wrote "Lydia the Tattooed Lady"!

Remember it? Full marks if you named E.Y.(Yip) Harburg.

• "Moon River" - words by Johnny Mercer to the music of Henry Mancini.
• "Memories" - word by Trevor Nunn to the music of Andrew Lloyd Webber.
• "Big Spender" - words by Dorothy Fields to the music of Cy Coleman.

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Copyright (c) 1999 - 2000 Ron Drew.
Last revised: October 14, 2002.