YIP Harburg

About YIP Harburg, lyricist for "Brother Can You Spare a Dime":

Yip wrote the lyrics to over 600 songs with a variety of composers. "It's Only a Paper Moon" (1932, with Arlen), "Over the Rainbow" (1939, Arlen, which won the Academy Award), "We're Off to See the Wizard," "Ding Dong! The Witch Is Dead" and "Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe" (1943, Arlen, from the film Cabin in the Sky). Later, with Lane, he wrote "Old Devil Moon" and "How Are Things in Glocca Morra?" The team of Arlen and Harburg also wrote Groucho Marx's signature song, "Lydia, the Tattooed Lady" (1939, from At the Circus). In 2006 Yip's two volumes of satiric light verse, Rhymes for the Irreverent (1965) and At This Point in Rhyme (1976) were reissued together in one hardcover edition under the title Rhymes for the Irreverent by the Freedom from Religion Foundation in cooperation with the Yip Harburg Foundation.

Yip followed the dream of democratic socialism: He believed that all people should be guaranteed basic human rights, political equality, free education, economic opportunity and free health services. He spent most of his life fighting for these goals; his songs "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" and "Over the Rainbow" express these universal cries for hope in hard times to all peoples.