Democracy Now! Audio - Democracy Now! 2025-12-25 Thursday

Episode Date: December 25, 2025

Democracy Now! Thursday, December 25, 2025

From New York, this is Democracy Now. To introduce myself, I belong to a special tribe of what used to be called troubadours. Sometimes they were called minstrels. Now we're called songwriters. We work for, in our songs, a sort of abhor. better world, a rainbow world. Now, my generation unfortunately never succeeded in creating that rainbow world

so we can't hand it down to you, but we could hand down our songs which still hang on to hope and laughter. Today we pay tribute to the blacklisted lyric

Custiae of Harvard, the man who put the rainbow in the Wizard of Oz, a democracy now special. All that and more. Coming up. Welcome to Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the Warren Peace Report. I'm Amy Goodman. Today we pay tribute to Yip Harburg. His name may not be familiar to many, but his songs are sung by millions around the world. Like jazz singer Abby Lincoln. Ike, Quebec lady, and here at Harper's Road. Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time.

Once I built a railroad, now it's done. Brother, can you spare a dime? And Tom Waits. The tower, we're up to the sun with bricks and mortar and life. Judy Collins and Dr. John from New Orleans, Peter Yarrow. Say, don't you remember? Don't you remember? They called me Al. It was Al. That's Al Jolson.

And our beloved Odetta. Don't you remember I'm your path. Say, buddy, can you spare a dime? Boy, can you spare a dime? Brother, can you spare a dime. May will be a new anthem for many Americans, the lyrics to that classic American song were written by Yiparberg. He was blacklisted during the McCarthy era.

During his career as a lyricist, Yiparberg used his words to express anti-racist, pro-worker messages. He's best known for writing the lyrics to The Wizard of Oz, the movie that inspired. the hit Broadway musical and now the Hollywood blockbuster film, Wicked. Yip Harburg also had two hits on Broadway, bloomer girls about the women's suffrage movement, and Finian's Rainbow, a kind of immigrant's anthem about race and class and so much else.

Today, in this Democracy Now special, we pay tribute to Yip Harberg's life. Ernie Harberg is Yip's son and biographer. He co-wrote the book, Who? put the rainbow in the Wizard of Oz, Yip Harburg lyricist. I met up with Ernie Harburg at the New York Public Library for Performing Arts at Lincoln Center years ago when they were exhibiting Yip Harburg's work. Ernie Harburg took me on a tour. The first place is some business about words, and one of them is that the songs, when they were written back in those days. Anyhow, always had a lyricist and a composer, and neither one of them wrote the song. They both wrote the song. However, in the English language, you know, you have, this is Gershwin's

song, or this is, they usually say the composer's song. I've rarely ever heard somebody say, this is Yip Harberg's song or Ira Gershwin's song. Both of them would be wrong. The fact is, two people write a song. So I'm going to talk about Yip's lyrics and then lyrics in the song. Now, the first thing we're looking at here is an expression, really, of Yip's philosophy and background, which he brings to writing lyrics for the songs. And what it says here is that songs have always been man's anodyne against tyranny and terror. The artist is on the side of humanity. from the time that he was born 100 years ago

in the dire depths of poverty that only the Lower East Side Manhattan could have when the Russian Jews, about two million of them, got up out of the Russian shuttles and ghettos, and the courageous ones came over here and settled in that area, what we now know is the East Village. And Yip knew poverty deeply. And he quoted Bernard Shaw as saying that the chill of poverty never leaves your bones.

And it was the basis of Yip's understanding of life as struggle. Let's go back to how Yip got his start. Yip was at a very early age interested in poetry. And it used to go to the Tofkin Square library. to read, and the librarians just fed him these things, and he got hooked on every one of the English poets, and especially, oh, Henry, the ending. He always has a little great ending on the end of each of the song.

And he got hooked on W.S. Gilbert, the Babs Ballad. And then when he went to Townsend High School, they had them sitting in the seats by alphabetical order, So Yip was H and Gershwin was G. So Ira sat next to Yip. One day Yip walked in with Babel's and Ira, who was very shy and hardly spoke to anybody, just suddenly lit up and say, do you like those? And they got into a conversation.

And Ira then said, do you know there's music to them? And Yip said, no. He said, well, come on home. So they went to Ira's home, which was on second and a fifth year, with the sort of upper from Yip's poverty at 11 and C. And they had a Victrola, which is like having, you know, a huge instrument today. And he played in H.M.S. Pinafore.

Well, Yip was just absolutely flower-guessed and knocked out. And that did it. I mean, for the both of them, because I was intensely interested in that they do. I am the captain of Pinnocon. You're very, very good and dear to understand. That's all right good for. And I never see good.

And he is understood because of the right to do. No, we need to talk here, I can hand beat and steer or ship the cell to achieve. I have never known that way of the beauty of a kill. And I never, never see, Katsy.

What's never? No, never. What's never? Where are dear old? This one never see Katsy. That began their lifelong friendship. And I remember went on to be one of the pioneers with 25 other guys,

Jewish, Russian immigrants, who developed the American musical theater. And it was only after, in 1924, I think, that I was first show with George, Gersh, and his brother, that they started writing together. The Gershwin's easy. The Gershwin's Forgy and Bess in 1940. So hush, little baby,

draw your heart. Yeah, the career took a kind of detour because when the war, World War I came, and it was a socialist and did not believe in the war, he took a boat down to Uruguay for three years. I mean, he refused to fight in the thing. That's shades of 1968 and the Vietnam War, right? And why didn't he believe in World War I?

Because he was a full, deep-died socialist who did not believe that capitalism was the answer to human community and that, indeed, it was the destruction of the human spirit. And he would not fight its wars. And at that time, the socialists and the lefties, as they were called Bolsheviks and everything else, were against the war. So when he came back, he got married, he had two kids, and he went to the electrical appliance business. And all the time hanging out with Ira and George and Howard Dietz and Buddy the Silver and writing lightburst for the FBI Conning Tower. and the newspapers used to carry light verse.

Every newspaper, there were about 25 of them at that time, not two or three now, owned by two people in the world, you know. And they actually carried light first. Well, Yip and Ira and Dorothy Parker, the whole crowd, had light verse in there, and they loved it. So when the crash came and Yip's business went under, and he was about anywhere 50 to $70,000 in debt, his partner went bankrupt

he didn't he repaid the loans for the next 20 or 15 years at least irony agreed that he should start writing lyrics let's talk about what yif is most known for finnion's rainbow the

wizard of Oz right here what do we have in front of us we have a lead sheet we are in the gallery of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and there is an exhibition called The Necessity of Rainbows which is the work of the apartment

and we are looking at the lead sheet of Brother King's Spirit Dime which came from a review called Americana which it was the first review which was had a political theme to it at that time the notion of the forgotten man You have to remember what the Great Depression was all about. It's hard to imagine that now. But when Roosevelt said one third of the nation are ill-clothed, ill-housed, and ill-fed, that's exactly what it was.

It was at least 30 percent unemployment at those times. And among blacks and minorities, it was 50, 60 percent. And there were breadlines. And now the rich, you know, kept living their lifestyle. but Broadway was reduced to about 12 musicals a year from a prior in the 20s about 50 a year, so it became harder. But the Great Depression was the dominant fact of life in everybody's mind, and all the songs were censored, I use that loosely, by the music publishers,

They only wanted love songs or escape songs So that in 1929 you had happy days are here again And you had all of these kinds of songs There wasn't one song that addressed the depression In which we were all living And this show, the Americana show, Yip was asked to write a song Or get the lyrics up for a song which addressed itself to the bread lines, okay?

And so he at that time was working very closely with Jay Gornie. Jay had a tune which he had brought over with it when he was eight years old from Russia, and it was in a minor key, which is a whole different key. Most popular songs are in major. and it was a Russian lullaby, and it was da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da, and Jay had lyrics for it. Once I knew a big blonde, and she had big blue eyes, she was big blue like that, and it was a torch song, of which we talked about. And Yip said, well, could we throw the words out, and I'll take the tune, all right. And if you look at Yip's notes, which are in the book that I mentioned, you'll see he started out writing a very satiric comedic song.

At that time, Rockefeller, the ancient one, was going around giving out dimes to people. And Yip had a satiric thing about, can I share my dime with you, you know? But then right in the middle, other images started coming out in his writings. And you had a man in a mill. And the whole thing turned into the song that we know it now, which is here and which I can read to you. And if you do this song, you have to do the verse because that's where a lot of the action is. Can you sing it to me? All right, I'll try.

It won't be as good as Big Grosby or Tom Wade. They used to tell me I was building a dream. And so I followed the mom when there was earth to plow. When there was earth to plow. Or guns to bear. I was always there. Right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream.

With peace and glory ahead, why should I be standing in mind? Just waiting for bread. Once I built a railroad, made it run, made it race against time. Once I built a railroad, Now it's done. Buddy, can you spare a dime? Yet Parberg's singing in 1975. Once I built a tower to the sun, brick and rivet and lime.

Once I built that tower, now it's done. brother can you spare a dime when was this song first played in 1932 and in the Americana review every critic everybody took it up and it swept the nation in fact paradoxically I think Roosevelt and the Democratic Party really wanted to tone it down and keep it off the radio because playing havoc with try to not talk about the depression, which everybody did.

You remember the Hoover thing, not only the happy days are here again, but two chickens in every pot and so forth. Nobody wanted to sing about the depression either, you know. Yet Yip Harburg was a supporter of FDR. Yes, but politics and politics, you know. And the thing was that, in fact, historically, this was, I would say, the only song that addressed itself seriously to the Great Depression, a condition of our lives, which nobody wanted to talk about and nobody wanted to sing about. Ernie Harburg, son of Yip Harburg. When we come back from our break, we'll talk about the Wizard of Oz, Finian's Rainbow,

and other shows. ...cams of confusion like these. when all the world is a hopeless jumble and the raindrops tumble all around heaven opens a magic lane when purple clouds darken up the skyway there's a lovely highway to be found leading from your window pane

to a spot behind the sun just a step beyond the rain somewhere over the rain way up high there's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby somewhere somewhere over the rain skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true someday I'll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me where troubles not like lemon drops away above the chimney house that's where you'll find me somewhere over the rainbow blue birds fly birds fly over that rainbow why then oh why can't I if any little birds

can fly beyond the rainbow. Why? Oh, I can die. This is Democracy Now. I'm Amy Goodman. We continue with our special on our journey through Yip Harburg's life with his son, Ernie Harburg. Ernie talks about how Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics to the Wizard of Oz, the movie that inspired the hit Broadway musical Wicked and now the Hollywood film by the same name.

Actually, Yip did more than the lyrics. When Yip and Harold Arland were called in to do the score of The Wizard of Oz, it was Yip who had this executive experience in his electrical appliance business and also had become a show doctor. So he was, that is when a show wasn't working, you would call somebody in, try to fix it up he had an overview of shows and he had an executive talent and so he was always what they called a muscle man in a show all right and he'd already worked there with bert lar in a great song the woodchopper's song and wait a second bertlar the lion the lion the lion

bert lar and most of these people were from vaudeville and burlesque and yip knew them in the 20s But he actually worked with Bert Lahr in this walk a little faster and another review. I forget that name. But he and Yip in Arlen gave Bert songs to sing, which allowed him to satirize the opera world, if you want, or the send-off of Rich, you know. And so they had that relationship. Also, Yip knew Jack Haley, the Tim Woodman. And Yip also worked with Bobby Conley as a choreographer in the early 30s on his shows,

who was also the choreographer for the Wiz of Oz. So he had a cast here with Arlen who were, you know, sort of Yip's men, you know what I mean? So when Yip went to Arthur Free to producer, who was too busy to work on this musical, and Mervyn Leroy had nothing to do with it practically, because he had never done a musical before. it became a vacuum in which the lyricist entered because he was already to do so. Yip was always an active, you know, organizer. And so the first thing he suggested was that they integrate the music with the story,

which at that time in Hollywood, they usually didn't do it. They'd stop the story and you'd sing a song, and he'd sing a song, that you integrate this. Arthur Freed accepted the idea immediately. Yip then wrote, Yip and Harold then wrote. the songs for the 45 minutes within a 110-minute film of the Munchkin sequence and into the Emerald City and on their way to the Wicked Witch, when all the songs stopped because they wouldn't let him do anymore, okay? You'll notice then the chase begins, you see? Why wouldn't they let him do anymore? Because they didn't understand what he was doing, and they wanted a chase in there.

So anyhow, Yip also wrote all the dialogue in that time, and he set up to the songs, and he also wrote the part where they give out the heart, the brains, and the nerve, because he was the final script editor. And there was 11 screenwriters on that, and he pulled the whole thing together, wrote his own lines, and gave the thing a coherence and a unity, which made it a work of art, but he doesn't get credit for that. lyrics by E.Y. Arberg, you see. But nevertheless, he put his

influence on the thing. Who wrote The Wizard of Oz originally, the story? Yeah. Frank L. Baum was an interesting kind of maverick guy who, at one point his life was an editor of a paper in South Dakota, and this was

at the time of the populist revolutions or revolts or what do you want to call it in the Midwest, because the railroads and the eastern city bank, absolutely dominated the life of the farmers and they couldn't get away from the debts that were accumulated

from these. And Baum set out consciously to create an American fable so that the American kids didn't have to read those German grim fairy stories where they

chopped off hands and things like that. He didn't like that. He wanted American fable. But it had this underlay of political symbolism to it that the farmer, the scarecrow, was the farmer. He

thought he was dumb, but he really wasn't. He had a brain. And the tin woodman was the result, was the laborer in the factories with one accident after another. He was totally reduced to a tin man with no heart.

All right, on the assembly line. And the cowardly line was William Jennings Breying, who kept trying, was a big politician at that time, promising to make the world over with the gold standard, you know. And the wizard, the humbug type, was the Wall Street finances, and the wicked witch was probably the railroads, but I'm not sure, all right? So it was a beautiful matchup here with Frank Baum and Yip Harburg, okay? Because

in the book, the word rainbow was never once mentioned. And you can go back and look at it. I did three times. The word rainbow is never once mentioned in the book. And the book opens up with

Dorothy on a black and white world that Kansas had no color. Just read the first paragraph in it. So when they got to the part where they had to get the song for the little girl

they hadn't written it yet they had written everything else they hadn't written a song for Judy Garland who was a discovery by one of Yip's collaborators Bert Lane and nobody knew the wonder in her voice at that time so

they worked on this song and at that time Ira Yip Larry Hart and the others thought that the composers should create the music first. Now, they were both locked into the lyricist and the composer were locked into the storyline and the character and a plot development. So they both knew that at this point there was a little girl in trouble on the Kansas City

environment, all right, and that she yearned to get out of trouble, all right? So Yip gave Harold what they call it, dummy title. It's not the final title, but it's something that more or less zeroes in on what the situation is all about, and what this little girl is going to take a journey, all right? So Yip gave a title, I want to get on the other side of the rainbow. Now, here's what happens, and I want you to play this symphonically. Okay, I said, my God, Harold, this is a 12-year-old girl wanting to be somewhere over the rainbow. It isn't Nelson Eddie.

And I got frightened. And I said, I don't. Let's save it. Let's save it for something else, but don't. Well, let's not have it then. Well, he felt his, he was crestfallen as he should be. and I said let's try again well he tried for another week

tried all kinds of things but he kept coming back to it as he should have and he came back and I was worried about it and I called Ira Gershwin over my friend Ira said to him he said

can you play it a little more in a pop style with rhythm Okay, I said, oh, well, that's great, that's fine. I said, now we have to get a title for it. I didn't know what the title was going to be. And when he had, I finally came to the thing, the way I logicalized it, I want to be somewhere on the other side of the rainbow.

and I began trying to fit on the other side of the rainbow when he had a front phrase like now if you sang ee you couldn't sing you had to sing oh that's the only thing that I had to get something with oh in it see over the rainbow now that sings beautifully so this sound forced me into the word over which was much better than on the other the side. Somewhere

over the rainbow way of heart. Anyhow, our other work on, Try it. Just play the chords alone, not the melody. And you will hear Paco Bell, and you will hear religious hymns, and you will hear fairy tales and lullivis just in the chords. No one ever listens to that, but try it if you play the piano. At all right, on top of these chords, then,

uh harold started the thing off with an octave jump somewhere okay and you've had no idea what to do with that octave jump uh incidentally how did this in paper moon too uh if you remember let's see how does that start it's only a paper moon sailing over a cardboard seat but it wouldn't be made believe if you believed in me and how it was a great composer so you have wrestled with it for about three weeks and finally he came up with the word you see this is what a lyric is the word to hit the storyline the character the music it's an incredible thing somewhere all right and then when you put in an octave you get somewhere okay and you jump up

and you're ready for take that journey where over the rainbow okay and then you're off it's not a love song it's a story of a little girl that wants to get

out she's in trouble and she wants to get somewhere well the rainbow is the only color that she'd see in in Kansas she wants to get over the rainbow but then you're put in something which makes it a yip song He said, and the dreams you dare to dream really do come true, you see.

And that word dare lands on the note, and it's a perfect thing, and it's been generating courage for people for years afterwards, you know. Somewhere over the rainbow, skies all blue. The dreams that you dare to dream really do come true. That's the way that the whole score came. Wasn't it hit right away? No, it wasn't. This was supposed to be an answer, MGM's answer, to Snow White and the Seven Dwar.

And of about ten major critics at that time, when Wizard of Oz came out, I would say only two liked the show. The other eight said it was corny, that it was heavy, that Judy Garland was no good, and so forth. Oh, yeah, you could read again in the book, Who Put the Rainbow in the Wizard of Oz by Harold Mearsson and Ernie Harbourg? But it persisted, you know? And then in 1956, when television first started saturating the nation. More than 20 years later. More than 20 years later, I don't think they even had their money back from the show, see.

The MGM sold the film rights to CBS, who then put it on, and it hit the top of it, broke out every single record there was, and it's been playing every year since then, and of course it went around the world, and it's become a major art work, which is, I must say, an American art. artwork is the story of the plot with the three characters the brain the heart the courage and finding a home is a universal story for everybody and uh that's an american uh kind of story all right and yip and harrow put the uh these things into song who did the munchkins represent we represent Oh, you mean political thing? I think they represented the little people, you know, the people.

And that's the way they were, it came on in the book. You see, the book, if you're a purist, you wouldn't like the film. It's just like anything else. There are societies of people who meet and discuss the book. There's even a society for the Winkies, which are the guards around the Wicked Witch's, you know, it's castle. There really is. They meet once a year. And they're serious.

And they don't like the picture because it didn't follow the book, see? Because Yip and the writers changed it as Hollywood will. Is the book a little more favorable to the Winkies? No. Well, yes. The Winkies were good people. And they were played up there. If you go back and read the book, you will see that they were a lovely.

decent kind of people. Yes. That was one thing. I guess it wasn't PC there, you know. But in other words, when you read a good novel and you see the film, there's hardly any relationship between the two. All these lines from a film have entered

the American language in a way that people don't even know where they came from. You know, gee, Toto, looks like we're not in Kansas anymore. Or, you know, come out, come out, wherever you are, which in the 70s started taking on

when the gay movement started, this line started meaning different things, you see? Come out, come out wherever you are and meet the young lady who tell from a star. So the songs keep growing with the times. People interpret them, you know? How did you feel in late 1950s when it was a hit, when people started hearing it all over the world?

Well, I think they were quite surprised, along with the film moguls, you know, and the fact that years of years later, he and Harold both said that they did not know what depth and strength that that song Over the Rainbow had. Also, one other one, the song, Ding Dong the Witch is a Universal Liberation of Freedom, a private freedom, you know, which isn't seen like that, but at one time when some tyrannical owner of an airline's company stepped down,

all the employees started singing ding, Donna, which is dead. So people use these words, and during the war, World War II, we're off to see, was sung by troops marching, you know. But nobody knows that Yip wrote the words. Harold wrote the music in the songs where Yip didn't happen. That's right. Because of the wonderful music, where I'll see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of mine.

Ernie Harburg, son of the blacklisted lyricist, Yip Harburg. This is Democracy Now. This night when we were young, love was a star, a song on sun. Life was so new, so real, so real, so right. ages ago last night. Today, the world is old. You went away, and time. And time grew cold. And time grew cold. Where is that star that shone so bright ages ago? This is Democracy Now, Democracy Now.org, the war and peace report.

I'm Amy Goodman. As we continue on our tour through the life of lyricist Yip Harburg with his son Ernie Harburg. Yip Harburg wrote the lyrics to The Wizard of Oz, the movie that inspired the hit Broadway musical and now Hollywood blockbuster, Wicked. We're walking through the gallery here at the Lincoln Center for the performing arts, which has the necessity of rainbows, which dedicated to the works of Yip Harburg, the lyricist. And we're now looking at the various exhibitions and why we're looking for Finian's rainbow, I want to tell you that in 19th, 1944, Yip conceived and co-wrote the script and put on a show called Bloomer Girl, which was way ahead of its time because Bloomer Girl was Dolly Blumer, who was an actual suffragette in 1860, who stood up and invented pants. And it was radical in those days, and the show was about Dolly Blumer, and she ran an underground railroad bringing slaves up, and she had an underground.

paper and she was an incredible woman and this was a political show some great songs in there Marine McGovern does right as the rain in a great way Lena Horn does Eagle and Me

which was the first song on Broadway that wasn't a blues lamentation about the black white situation was a call to action we got to be free the Eagle and Me and Dooley Wilson who was in Casa Monica, signed that.

We got to be free, no eagle and me. So again, Yip managed to get his philosophy into his show, which was the second truly integrated American musical after Oklahoma. And while, you know, it has been played around, it still marked that historically. After that came to Phoenix Rainbow. You mean blacks and whites playing in the cast? No, not in there. In Finney's Rainbow, I mean that it was a political statement.

Blumen Girl was a political statement, and it was a smash hit. In 1946, Yip conceived the idea, the story, the script for Finney's Rainbow, which was meant to be an anti-racist and in a certain sense anti-capitalist show also. Let's find it. Let's find.

Finney and's rainbow. Here's a cabin in the sky, which is the first all-black Hollywood film in the 40s, which Yip and Harold did also. Happiness is just a thing came called Joe. Here's Blumer Girl that I'm talking about. So we should be somehow

coming onto Finian's Rainbow But here's Yip. Here, there's a video of Yip talking if you want to meet the man. You got into political trouble in this country at a time and a lot of people got into political trouble during

the McCarthy years. Were you blacklisted? Thank God, yes. During the McCarthy period, were they actually going through your lyrics with a fine-tooth comb looking for lies that might be subversive, that might show Yip Parberg's true political colors? Yes. I wrote a song for Cabin in the Sky, which Ethelwater sang, and was part of the

situation in the picture. It was a poor woman who had nothing in life except this one man, Joe. And she sang, it seemed like happiness is just a thing called Joe. Like happiness is just a thing called Joe. One of the producers, we're not a macroscope, but a microscope, found in this lyric that happiness is just a thing called Joe was a tribute to Joe Stalin. We're kidding about it now, but the country, this was the blackest, the blackest and darkest moment in history of this beautiful country. Sometime the cabin gloomy and a table bear Soon he kissed me And it's Christmas everywhere

Trouble fly away And life is easy go Does he love Now me good, that's all I have to know. Seem like happiness is just a thing called Joe. Now here we are at Finney's Rainbow, at last. And this was, Yip conceived this in 1946, and Fred Sadie, who was his co-script writer, and Harold Arlen demurred from writing this because he felt that it was,

Yip was too fervent in his political themes, and he wanted to, Harold wanted to do something else. So Yip got Bert Lane, and then came out this great, great, school from Finney's Rainbow An old devil moon that you stole from the skies it's that old devil moon in your eyes

I was thinking Lackamora etc but the theme of Finians was a total fantasy and it was an American fable in which

an Irishman and his daughter come from Ireland, search around, and find Rainbow Valley in Missitucky, okay? And he believes that he plants the crock of gold, which he stole from the leprechaude, in the ground, that it will grow, just like at Fort Knox, right? I don't think was fabulous. It well, maybe, he's bringing me a cheery and word. I hear a breeze, a river's shanum breeze. It well, maybe, it's followed me across the seas.

then tell me peace How are things In Glockamara Is that little brook still lipping there Does it still run down To Donny Cove Through Killiebe

His legs he'll carry on to dare our things in Glacomara is that will a tree. And then the southern white senator, a very stereotypic part, finds out that Finian has this land and tries to run him out of town because there's blacks and whites living together. and the sharecroppers, and they claim that Finian's daughter is a witch, and they're going to burn her at the stake and all sorts of, you know, incredible things that say something about the American scene. But the score was so great that people who see it, do not see it as a socialist track, which is the only one on Broadway. They see it as a very, very entertaining. musical and unique in American musicals because in the first place there are very, very few musicals which are original. Most musicals are adapted from books. This was just conceived by

Fred Sadie and Yip as a satiric send-off on the American society. So you've got this great song in here, when the idle poor become the idol rich, how are you going to know who is rich? Like that. When the idle poor become the idle rich, you'll never know just who is who or who is witch. Won't it be rich when everyone's poor relative

becomes a rock or fallative and palms no longer itch? And what a switch When we all have her name And plastic tea How will we determine Who's underneath And when all your neighbors Are of her class

You won't know your Joneses From your Astors Let's toast the day The day we drink a drinky up But with a little pinky up The day I wish So, Phanyan's Raybo Has become a classic

Now, it's interesting that Finians has not had a tour, a national tour since 1948, but they play it in every single high school in the United States three or four times a month in every state of the Union. So Finians was at the time 1947 when a Cold War was beginning and the House on American Committee was starting up and they were searching for lefties. And by 1951, Yip had been blacklisted from any chance to do any other wonderful shows that they did in Hollywood, Dr. Doolittle, Treasure Island. He was blocked from working there. And then he was blocked from going into radio and into TV.

So, and this is an historical fact which Yip and, self says Broadway at the American theater in New York City was the only place where an artist could stand up and say whatever he wanted provided he got the money to put the show on so for Phinean's rainbow they had to have 25 auditions because they said it was a commie red thing and finally they got the money up and they put the show up but by that time Yip was blacklisted, and his next show was Jamaica with Lina Horn, which is an all-black cast. Well, one other thing, in terms of Yip's drive for racial, ethnic equality, and that is that Finians Ramo, in 1947, was the first show on Broadway,

where the chorus line consisted of blacks and whites who danced with each other, and the chorus was an integrated affair. What happened to him during the McCarthy era? Well, he could not work on any major film that they wanted him to work on from the major studios in Hollywood. The setup was that Roy Brewer, who was the head of the Iatsy Union, I'm sorry to say that Was the one who

What do you mean? Well, I mean this is a stage hands union I'd like to say good things about unions But they get bureaucratized and they go right wing You know they get bad This was a bad leader And he terrorized All of the Jewish moguls

Who were being accused of communism By the House on American Activities Committee And they yielded to whatever he said to them out of fear that they would get branded as communists or that they boycott the film all right and so when uh you know they they weren't called yip in to do uh huckleberry fin with bert lane uh then roy and the guys said no he's on our black list okay and you can't hire him and then yip went away and they wanted him to work on dr dula no you can't hire him And the same thing for radio and TV.

That was known as a, quote, blacklist, which wasn't, that were the first use of the term. Because in small towns, we had company corporations going, if you did something that the company didn't like, you were blacklisted from town. You couldn't get a job in town. But this was the first time due to the technology that a blacklist was national and accompanied by a loaded word communist that could get you fired. any place for yip it was horrible because the uh his friends who were artists suddenly had no income and uh there was suicides there was divorces there were people who left the country there were people whose lives would just ruin and so yip supported some of them uh dalton drummond who was one of the hollywood 10 who were first picked out by the house on american activities committee

to go to jail for a year of citation are you now or have you ever been a member of the communist party you know um yip uh fronted him with money and so forth it was a horrible time how long wasn't how long couldn't yip work for for about uh from 1951 to 1962 he came back to hollywood and he and harold arland did gay peri which is with judy garland she asked them to come back and uh it's a cult uh animated cartoon now which which you can get in your video. And I remember him putting on a show at the Tabor Auditorium, welcome back, yep, you know.

And he, in 62. But that means that the Wizard of Oz made it big during the time that he was blacklisted. And when you consider the social commentary that it was making, that's pretty profound. Yeah, but I don't think hardly anyone knows the political symbolism underneath the Wizard of Oz because, again, it's a thing that happens.

and Finians Rainbow, even though, as Peter Stone noted playwright on Broadway said, it's the only socialist track ever on Broadway, all right? People don't hear the political message in it, okay? They are vastly entertained. And the same thing happens with The Wizard. You know, no one would even think of such a thing. My song, like when the idol poor become the idol rich and brother can you spare a dime, caused a great deal of furor

during a period in Hollywood when a fellow by the name of Joe McCarthy was reigning supreme. And so they got something up for people to take care of us, like me, called the Blacklist. And I landed on the enemy list. And in order to overcome the enemy list,

what was the enemy list? Well, it's a one, that you were a red, another one that you were a blue nose, and the other one on the blacklist. Finally, I thought the rainbow was a wonderful symbol, of all these lists. In order to overcome the enemy list, and this rainbow that they gave me the idea for,

I wrote this little poem, lives of great men all remind us. greatness takes no easy way all the heroes of tomorrow are the heretics of today socrates and galileo

john brown thorold christ and debbs heard the night cry down with traitors and the dawn shout up the reds nothing ever seems to bust

them crosses, prison barred. Though we try to readjust them, there they are among the stars. Lives of great men all remind us. We can write our names on high and departing leave behind us. Some prints in the FBI. The words of Yiparberg, and that does it for today's program, which was actually produced for radio in 1996 with Errol Maitland

Dan Coughlin's special thanks to Gary Helm, Brother Shine, and Julie Drizen. Democracy Now is produced with Mike Burke, Renee Feltz, Dina Guster, Messiah, Rhodes, Nermine Shaf, Maria Tarasana, Tammy Warnoff, Sam Alcoff, Tamaray, Mara, Astidio. John Hamilton, Rabbi Karen, Honey Massoud, Hannah Elias, our executive directors, Julie Crosby, special. Thanks to Becca Steli, John Randolph, Paul Powell, Mike DeFo, Miguel Negara, Hugh Grant, Dennis Moynihan, David Pru, Dennis McCormick, Matt Ely, Anna Ozbeck, Emily Anderson, Dante Terrieri, and Buffy St. Marie Hernandez. I'm Amy Goodman.

Thanks so much for joining us.