Get Happy

No, that’s not an order, just a tribute to the man who wrote the music for that song, Harold Arlen. Today would have been Arlen’s 100th birthday. Did you hear the great NPR report about him this morning? I never listen to the radio when I’m driving Leah to school but something made me turn it on today just when “Get Happy” was blaring:

The sun is shinin, c'mon get happy,
The Lord is waitin to take your hand.
Shout Hallejulah c'mon get happy,
We're going to the Promised Land.
We're headin across the river to
Wash your sins away in the tide.
It's all so peaceful on the other side.

Hmmm, do you think “Get Happy” is encouraging people to commit suicide?

I wonder why Harold Arlen’s name is not as well known today as Irving Berlin or the Gershwins. Of course Arlen is most famous for writing the music for “Over the Rainbow,” the song that Louis B. Mayer tried to ax from “The Wizard of Oz” because he thought it was undignified for an MGM star to sing in a farmyard. Arlen had to fight tooth and nail to get the song back in the picture.

He was born Chaim Arluck, the son of a cantor, in Buffalo, New York. He sang in the synagogue choir but became obsessed with the “race” records of the day and ended up at the Cotton Club in Harlem. What was it about that period that made all the Jewish composers draw on African-American music and write songs such as Arlen’s “Champagne Fo’ De Lady,” “I Got Dat Feelin,” and “Ain' It De Truth?” Ethel Waters called Arlen “the Negro-est white man” she ever knew!

Where is the definitive Harold Arlen biopic? Every actress in Hollywood should fight for the role of Arlen’s wife, Anya Taranda, a former Ziegfeld showgirl who slowly went mad and died in 1970 of a brain tumor. Cate Blanchett, if you don’t get the Oscar later this month for playing Katharine Hepburn, you’ve got a hot date with Anya Taranda!

Among my favorite Arlen tunes are “Stormy Weather” (I saw Lena Horne sing this song in New York in the late 1970s and during the song she leaned down to the people in the front row and pushed back her hair to prove she never had a face lift!), “Come Rain or Come Shine” (my main reference being the Ray Charles version that was played during Ellyn’s wedding on “thirtysomething”—oy, could I date myself more?), “One for My Baby” (which makes me think of the superb “Mary Tyler Moore Show” episode where Mary sings it—badly but with lots of spunk—in Lou Grant’s office), “God’s Country” (which I used as the soundtrack for an anti-war film I made in high school—the lyrics include lines such as “We’ve got no Duce, We’ve got no Fuhrer, But we’ve got Garbo and Norma Shearer…”), “Lydia the Tattooed Lady” (which Virginia Weidler’s Dinah Lord sings to perfection as she’s trying to freak out Jimmy Stewart and Ruth Hussey in “The Philadelphia Story”), and my all-time favorite Harold Arlen song—actually my all-time favorite song, period: “Ac-cent-tchu-ate the Positive.” What is it about this song that makes me want to listen to it over and over again? Is it the simplistic recipe for happiness that appeals to my overly cynical nature? I have multiple versions of it on my iPod featuring Johnny Mercer (who wrote the lyrics), Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin, Al Jarreau, even Willie Nelson:

You got to ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-between

You got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
And have faith, or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark,
What did they do, just when everything looked so dark?
Man, they said, we better

Ac-cent-tchu-ate the positive
E-lim-i-nate the negative
And latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-between

I think I just figured out the cause of all the problems in my life. I’ve been messin’ with Mister In-between!

Comments

[Tamar]

Danny - I really didn't want to sound too much like a groupie today. But this posting is absolutely tremendous. I so enjoyed reading it this morning - not to mention that I learned a lot from it. I had no idea Arlen wrote all those wonderful songs.

[David]

Wow. Now you've got that song stuck in my head.

I had to sing (or listen) to so many of his songs, so many dozens of times in my summer theatre days. Thing is, his songs would get stuck in your head -- and you'd be **happy** about it. Thanks for reminding me.
David

[your sister]

Danny-Tamar is right. This post is so educational-who knew? I had no idea Arlen wrote all those songs. Danny, you MUST write the Arlen biopic! Come on-it's ripe to be written, it's SO interesting and you are the perfect man to do it. Come on Danny-do it!!
Ok-I gotta go cancel my lunch date with Mr. In-between.

[Marilyn Reynolds]

Danny--I love this. Mike did a whole show with the lyrics of Yip Harburg, who did hundreds of collaborations with Harold Arlen, including "Over the Rainbow," "It's Only a Paper Moon," "Last Night, When We Were Young (there's something to get in your cups over)," and hundreds of others. Mike put together a basic Yip Harburg bio/script to go along with the music. It was wonderful! He only did it once and I keep nagging him to find a place to do it again--your living room?--Marilyn

[Danny]

I would give anything for Mike to do that show in our living room! And maybe we could do a simultaneous blogcast!

[amba]

I came here just to say . . . O Y ! ! ! !

Ah . . . that's better.