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Ira Gershwin, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany


Michael Feinstein (with Ian Jackman), The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs,
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.


Wilfred Sheed, The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty,
New York: Random House, 2007 (paper-bound ED. 2008 shown)

Ira "painstakingly and brilliantly crafted the lyric to "The Man That Got Away," the song many consider Ira's "'last great standard,' coming thirty years after the first, 'The Man I Love'." Feinstein goes on to write that he does not believe that the lyric to this song, as others have suggested, was inspired by Ira's "well of personal of suffering," especially with regard to his brother's death some seventeen years earlier. Feinstein says,

I asked Ira if he'd suffered writing that song and he said, "I was doing my job." I pressed a little: "But it's so deeply emotional and so connected to very dark feelings." He said, "Then I did my job well" (p. 102).

Wilfred Sheed agrees with Feinstein that in the lyric for "The Man That Got Away" in lines like "The road gets tougher. / It's lonelier and rougher," Ira "was not really writing about himself, but coming from the author of "Do, Do, Do" and 'S Wonderful," the voice is unrecognizable and would not be heard again in a musical score [of his] (Wilfred Sheed, The House That George Built: With a Little Help from Irving, Cole, and a Crew of About Fifty,
New York: Random House, 2007, p. 72).

Also Feinstein notes that when George died, Ira's life changed so much not only because it was his brother who died so prematurely but because his brother was also his "work partner." Feinstein goes on: "Of all the legendary people whom Ira worked with after George's death--Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, Aaron Copeland, and Harold Arlen, among others--Geroge was the only one he considered a true genius" (p. 103).


Although this video is more about George than Ira, it begins with
Ira talking about George, and Ira continues to turn up, here and there, throughout.
This interview featuring Ira Gershwin talking about his brother George is available at:
Amazon || iTunes

Ira's lyric stresses the wild African appeal of the music in Harlem and the need for white people to "take a taxi and go there." and "when you enter this new world, / This particular blue world, / You'll begin / Giving in." Today's sensibility would hear lines like "Listen to that uptown jungle wail," as being unacceptable, and rightly so. Then, the racism of it wasn't a concern in most of the white world. The Gershwin's partook of that language while at the same time they helped to create a world of integrated music, culture and life in America.

Research Resources: Ira Gershwin

Questions

What is Ira Gershwin, songwriter?

Michael Feinstein (with Ian Jackman), The Gershwins and Me: A Personal History in Twelve Songs , New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012.

How should Ira Gershwin, songwriter be cited?

Cite this page as "Ira Gershwin, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany," Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/g_sws/gershwin_ira.html

Which Cafe Songbook pages are related?

Also read "The Man That Got Away" (https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/m/man_that_got_away_m.html); "The Man I Love" (https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/m/man_i_love.html); "Anything for You" (https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/a/anything_for_you.html); "Ask Me Again" (https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songs/a/ask_me_again.html).

Cite this page: Ira Gershwin, songwriter: reference sources (web and print); selected songs; recordings, videos; miscellany, Cafe Songbook, https://greatamericansongbook.net/pages/songwriters/g_sws/gershwin_ira.html