Harold Arlen: Tattoos and Rainbows

As I’ve looked into Harold Arlen’s life in preparation for Master Chorus Eastside’s upcoming Great American Songbook concert, I’ve been amazed at his versatility, grasp of styles, and depth of expressiveness. He was a full-fledged Tin Pan Alley composer, with all that entails: ballads, show business tunes, novelty numbers, film scores later on: think of the light-hearted It’s Only a Paper Moon, the wistful Somewhere Over the Rainbow, the wacky Lydia the Tattooed Lady.  More than most white composers, except maybe George Gershwin, he was conversant in jazz, blues, and music of the dance bands: think of the sultry Stormy Weather, the jazzy That Old Black Magic (which I examined in my last blog), and his first big hit, the tent-meeting-revivalist-styled Get Happy.

Pretty good for the shy son of a New York cantor!

He was born Hyman Arluck in February 1905, although like other popular Jewish composers of the time, such as Irving Berlin and George Gershwin, he changed his name as his career took off.  At seven he joined his synagogue choir, so little he had to stand on a chair so all could see him.  At nine he began piano lessons.  At sixteen he dropped out of high school and formed a small dance band, The Snappy Trio.  In his early twenties he joined a well-known eleven-man band called the Buffalodians, and his composing career began to blossom.  By the late 1920s he was attracting national attention with a string of hits.  In the mid-1930s he moved to Hollywood  and took up film scores.  There he created the music for The Wizard of Oz, including Judy Garland’s signature hit Somewhere Over the Rainbow.

And a song for the equally unforgettable Marx brothers comedy At the Circus, that signature Groucho tune, Lydia the Tattooed Lady.

Arlen once said, “I could never stay with one thing very long, in melody at least.”  And his output certainly bore that out.  These two movies were both released in the same year, 1939.  And no two numbers could be more unlike!

Let’s consider Over the Rainbow.  Here is Garland in her remarkably sweet movie rendition.

Arlen beautifully captures the arc of a rainbow in the leaps sprinkled throughout: “somewhere,” “way up high,” “there’s a land,” skies are blue.”  It’s as if Dorothy’s longing springs with the melody far above the drab Kansas plains and into the very heart of imagination. Which is astonishing, because there was no text to give Arlen inspiration.  The melody came to him one day as he was driving down Sunset Boulevard.  The words were added afterwards by lyricist Yip Harburg.  And then the fluttery mid-section seems to echo the wings of the bluebirds in the final verse, wings that promise to carry her far above the clouds and away from her troubles.

And now compare this to Groucho and crew singing Lydia the Tattooed Lady!

Like Over the Rainbow there’s a leap in Lydia, on “tattooed.”  Is it great artistry?  Maybe Arlen just couldn’t contain himself over the tattoos!  But that’s just about where the similarity ends.  The genius of this novelty number comes in a simplicity which is never simple-minded: the attractive, singable melody; a surprisingly sophisticated ABACA form which provides interest and variety (A= “Lydia, oh Lydia”; B= “She can give you a view”; C= “Come along and see Buffalo Bill,”each section separated by a “la la” interlude); the goofy lyrics which are never obscured by tune and harmony; and the waltzing rhythm, for who wouldn’t dance over a phenom like Lydia!  It’s 180 degrees from Over the Rainbow, and inspired zaniness!

Arlen died at age 81, not as well known as many of his contemporaries, maybe because he was shy to the end.  But he was a marvelously versatile composer, capable of expressing great tenderness, world-weariness, optimism, and humor in music dressed up in jazz, blues or ballads.  He deserves to be better known.  And since MCE is presenting these two numbers as choral arrangements, plus several other Arlen classics in The Great American Songbook, we’re doing our best to make that happen.

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and conductor

Master Chorus Eastside

Harold Arlen: Magic!

Harold Arlen may be one of the best kept secrets of the American Songbook.

He composed some masterful songs, on a par with George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and Cole Porter, and yet he is seldom mentioned in the same breath with them, much less on his own.  I’ve had a nodding acquaintance with him as the writer of the lovely Over the Rainbow, but even so I’ve hardly paid attention to him.  Here is a tiny glimpse of his output: Stormy Weather, all of the music for The Wizard of Oz, That Old Black Magic, Get Happy,  It’s Only a Paper Moon, Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive, One for My Baby (And One More for the Road), and hundreds more.  It’s only as Master Chorus Eastside has been preparing for our Great American Songbook concert, which includes some of his numbers, that he has come into focus for me as one of our most underrated Songbook composers.

Take his That Old Black Magic for example, lyrics by Johnny Mercer, who crafted the words in 1942, apparently with Judy Garland in mind.  I’ve heard it off and on over the years but haven’t really appreciated it until I began rehearsing an arrangement of it with the MCE Chamber Singers.

Here is Garland herself in a ballad-like 1942 recording.

The number suggests a love affair that is overpowering, magnetic, maybe even dangerous—after all, it is black magic!—and Arlen adroitly expresses that sense through some downright mesmerizing music.  The A section begins:

That old black magic has me in its spell,

that old black magic that you weave so well.

Those icy fingers up and down my spine,

that same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine.

Notice the magical words: “black magic,” “spell,” “weave,” “witchcraft.”  Notice the melodic note repeated over and over on “That old black magic has...in its spell,” almost like a snake that  has immobilized its intended victim with its hypnotic gaze.  The harmony enhances that image; it remains an unchanging undercurrent until the word “weave,” and then stays with the new chord until the word “witchcraft,” where it begins a dissonant rising tension that finally resolves on the word “eyes.” Notice the narrow compass of the melody; the first phrase uses only two notes confined to the interval of a sixth, and the second phrase only adds two more notes.  It all creates a sense of capture, confinement, helplessness!

He returns to that hypnotic sense with, “That same old tingle that I feel inside,” but melody and harmony are now slightly agitated.  The agitation increases with a melody line that matches the rising elevator of the second phrase, strengthened by a brand new chord on the word “ride,” one foreign to the key of the piece.  And then melody and harmony gradually descend in “Down and down I go, round and round I go,” still with those repeated notes and harmonies, but now broken up in excitement by occasional passing notes.

The music comes suddenly to life in the B section, “I should stay away, but what can I do?” as if trying to break away from the spell: the melody frantically leaps here and there, repeated notes are mostly gone, harmonies change more rapidly.  Most interesting is the disturbance evident in “I’m aflame, aflame with such a burning desire...”: “aflame” is repeated (the first time words recur back-to-back), the melody plunges as if crashing in fire, then dizzyingly ascends on the word “desire” over a remarkable minor chord, perhaps a last gasp and somber recognition that escape is impossible.  For then it begins to settle back into the repeated notes of the spell and the kiss that puts out the fire.

The hypnosis reasserts itself in the return to the A section with “You’re the lover I have waited for,” but then something new happens: the melody soars skyward on “the mate that fate had me created for,” still with repeated notes but over harmony that suggests a new key, at least for a few measures.  And somehow this time, when lips meet and the singer is once again pulled downward into the spin of love over that last, long stretch of mesmerized notes, there is certainly acceptance, perhaps partnership, maybe even triumph.  For even though the melody clings to its  static statement, the harmonies move and change, as if they are in control!

Since we began rehearsing That Old Black Magic I find that it runs almost unceasingly in my head, over and over, as if...I were under a spell!

Dr. Linda Gingrich

Artistic director and Conductor

Master Chorus Eastside