"A Song Without Lyrics Is A Lot Like H2 Without The O." Ira Gershwin

I am looking forward to the purchase & perusing of the new volume- Finishing The Hat: Collected Lyrics(1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines & Anecdotes by Stephen Sondheim. I have a life long passion for the lyrics of the popular song & theatre music. Among the very greatest, a personal favorite of mine, is Ira Gershwin who celebrates a 114th anniversary of his birth today.

Ira Gershwin worked with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century: I Got Rhythm, Embraceable You, The Man I Love & Someone to Watch Over Me, & the opera Porgy & Bess.

The success the brothers had with their collaborations has often overshadowed the creative role that Ira played. His masterly lyric writing went on after the early death of George frpm a brai hemorage. He wrote additional hit songs with composers Jerome Kern, Kurt Weill & Harold Arlen. Ira Gershwin gave us the words to But Not For Me, Embraceable You, I Can't Get Started,I Got Rhythm, The Man I Love, They Can't Take That Away From Me, Someone to Watch Over Me, 'S Wonderful, The Man That Got Away &Strike Up the Band, among hundreds of others.

Gershwin Prize for Popular Song was awarded to Stevie Wonder by U.S. President Barack Obama on February In 2007, the Library of Congress named its Prize for Popular Song after him and his brother George. Recognizing the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world's culture, the prize will be given annually to a composer or performer whose lifetime contributions exemplify the standard of excellence associated with the Gershwins. In March 2007, the Library of Congress announced that Paul Simon was the first recipient of the annual Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song. The second, in 2009, went to Stevie Wonder.

His critically acclaimed book Lyrics on Several Occasions (1959), a combo of autobiography & annotated anthology, sits in my bookcase along with books about other songwriters. It is one of my favorites.

For me, Someone To Watch Over Me is a perfect song. I offer up Linda Ronstadt's & version with a Nelson Riddle arrangment as my argument: