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"This loving memoir of a fifty-year
career helps explain the heartbreak and the subtle political
agenda that informed such songs as 'Brother, Can You Spare
a Dime,' 'Paper Moon,' and 'April in Paris,' to say nothing
of the glorious lyrics for the delicious 'Finian's Rainbow'
and, of course the enduring film classic of the book's
title."
--Christian Science Monitor
"Ultimately, Harburg's great subject wasn't just love
and its anguishes --Topic A Through Z for songwriters
of that era -- but belief and its crises."
-- Harold Meyerson
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". . . a virtuoso critical
assessment of lyric writing. . . ."
--American Theatre
". . . required reading for anyone interested in the
great American songs."
--New York Times Book Review
"[An] excellent biography . . . . This book is meticulously annotated
and is, in its way, the ideal of how such a career should be chronicled."
--Times Literary (London)
"[This] detailed analysis of lyrics and the connections of lyrics with
the music will provide much food for thought for all those who seek to understand
how popular culture can work, at its best, against the logic of the cash-register
system that handles the receipts, manipulates the audience, and pays off the
artist (as little as possible). The best thing about Who Put the Rainbow is
that, like Yip himself, it manages to tell the truth about Yip's cultural politics
without ever being heavy-handed. This is a lesson we all need to learn."
--Monthly Review
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