Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #124854 in Books
• Published on: 2000-11-21
• Released on: 2000-11-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 736 pages

From Library Journal
Gottlieb (editor, Reading Jazz) and Kimball (editor, The Complete Lyrics of Ira Gershwin) have assembled 1000 popular American and English song texts dating from 1900 to 1975 and arranged them chronologically by lyricist's birth date. Focusing solely on theater and film songs, the editors profile more than 100 songwriters, including Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, Yip Harburg, and Stephen Sondheim. Each entry details their musical contributions and three or more lyrics with verse(s) and refrain. Country, rock, folk, and blues numbers go unmentioned, as they would not have fit in this single volume. "One-hit wonders" are also listed at the back along with an index of song titles. The inclusion of lesser-known songs by major figures such as Irving Berlin or by little-remembered writers such as Mann Holiner or Sam Coslow seems to pad the volume rather than enhance its usefulness. Unfortunately, the title, too, is misleading: Reading Lyrics is more of a compilation than an interpretative work. This book is recommended, however, as a sanctioned print alternative to various lyric web sites for libraries serving a clientele seeking popular song texts and information.DBarry Zaslow, Miami Univ. Libs., Oxford, OH
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Most people remember a song better than they remember a poem. During the 1900^-75 scope of this sterling anthology, remembering a song was remembering a poem. That span was the heyday of the classic American popular song, which re-expressed all the old emotions in language invigorated by the dialects of all the external and internal immigrants drawn to America's burgeoning industrial centers. The typical classic American popular song--any of the 1,000-plus examples editors Gottlieb and Kimball have chosen--is rife with those pnemonic aids par excellence, rhyme and wordplay. Accordingly, you could use the book for a party game, the object of which would be seeing who recalls the most songs and, beyond that, can sing them. With lyricists including all the superstars, from Cohan to Sondheim, and plenty whose songs' fame have outlived that of their names, such as Haven Gillespie ("Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town") and Edward Eliscu ("Without a Song"), the party could take all of a grand night for singing. Oh!--get a copy for the reference desk, too. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review
“Indispensable, stellar new anthology. This eclectic book provides enough humor, romance and sophistication to make you forget that Seussical even existed.”
–Jason Zinoman, Time Out New York

“This music is an amazing art form; it’s a substantial cultural phenomenon.”
–Newsweek

“’Reading Lyrics’ is both a groundbreaking social document and its own pleasure dome. Its seven hundred and six pages confirm the accomplishments of the greats, but they also provide surprises.” –The New Yorker

“America was the laboratory that proved Plato’s contention that songs are ‘spells for souls for the creation of concord.’ If you read between the lines of many of the lyrics in the anthology, you hear an alarmed society calming its frazzled nerves.”
–The New Yorker

“[‘Reading Lyrics’] defies literary categorization. It’s reference work. It’s a singalong book. . . It’s a shadow history of taste and mores over much of the past century. It’s a valentine to a now-vanished artistic craft. And it’s an act of fond provocation.”
–The Boston Globe

“’Reading Lyrics’ demonstrates one of the may magic tricks that words can do: the way that letters and lines on a page can (with years of practice) learn how to carry a tune.”
–Elle

“With around 170 lyricists on offer, the book makes its share of worthwhile rediscoveries. . . . That’s the fun of ‘Reading Lyrics.’ Readers can hum along with songs they know, while songs they don’t will have them hurrying off to the nearest music megastore.” –New York Times Book Review

“Sparklingly entertaining, ‘Reading Lyrics’ exalts the lyrical sublimity of such cunning wordsmiths as Porter, Gershwin, and Coward.” –Vanity Fair

“Tuneless, but what joy! . . . . For no sooner do the lyrics appear before one’s eyes than reading gives way to song.” –Billboard Magazine

“This wondrous and magical concoction is highly recommended.”
–Wall Street Journal

“This is one of the finest collections of words there is. To quote P.G. Wodehouse. . . ‘And I wish someday I could find my way/To the land where the good songs go.’ That land is Reading Lyrics. ‘S wonderful.” –Newsday

Customer Reviews

"Reading Lyrics" Lives up to its billing
Excellent collection of non-rock pop music from 1900 to 1975, after which the authors say the kind of music they have collected has pretty well disappeared. They feature a short bio of each writer or team of writers,interesting, but nothing you couldn't find with a quick internet search.

They do not include country, rock, folk or "world" lyrics--strictly pop Americana, heavy on musicals, show tunes, cabaret and torch songs, songs that went with the big-band swing era, etc.

It can be a little hard to find songs in the book--they are arranged in roughly chronological order by author--and the index contains first lines, but no "trademark" phrases that might help you track down a song whenyou have a fragment of a lyric caroming about in your head.

It gives the lyric that we usually remember, but also includes the short preludes that these songs usually featured. "Stardust," for example, starts out with "And now the purple dusk of twilight time. . .etc." that precedes "Sometimes I wonder. . . etc."

fun to read,just to get a fix on the various eras of American musical pop culture. Occasionally it makes you wish that more of our current lyricists had the skills that the Cole Porters and Yip Harburgs posessed.

This is so great, that I am ordering another copy
I bought this as a gift for a friend who enjoys knowing all the lyrics of songs. In this book, he discovered some intros and verses he hadn't known.
He has enjoyed the book so much that I am going to buy one for myself.

Lyrics, oh, the lyrics
It is usual that books cover the music side of those classic songs. This one, instead, focus on the lyricists, that's the way it is organized. Chronologically, but in the writers order. A thousand songs! It covers almost the whole 20th century but,of course, mainly the 30s and 40s, the classical years for American Popular Songs. It is beautiful to follow those wonderful verses - keeping in mind always the melodies that come behind. What a powerful combination.
One more thing: if you, like me, loves books as much as music, this one has a particularity: it smells divine! try it!