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Lorenz Hart

photo of Rodgers and Hart, 1936
Richard Rodgers (seated
and Lorenz Hart, 1936

Basic Information

Born: Lorenz Milton Hart, May 2, 1895, New York City

Died: November 22, 1943 (age 48), New York City

Primary songwriting role: lyricist; also a translator from the German

Co-writers: almost exclusively Richard Rodgers; See also a database of 5 Hart co-writers.

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Basic Songwiter Information
Overview and Commentary
Music-Video Cabinet
Songs by This Songwriter
in the Cafe Songbook Catalog
of The Great American Songbook
Web Research Resources
Print Research Resources
Visitor Comments
Master List of Songwriters
Credits

Overview and Commentary:
Lorenz Hart

book cover: Gary Marmorstein "A Ship without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart"
Gary Marmorstein
A Ship Without A Sail:
The Life of Lorenz Hart
,
New York: Simon and Schuster,
2012

"Given that Larry Hart had to be practically locked up in a room to write a lyric, it's astounding that he and Rodgers wrote any shows at all. As it was they produced nearly thirty shows and some eight hundred songs in the twenty-five years (with additional "lost" lyrics still turning up now and then). At least fifty of those songs are among the finest American songs ever written" (Marmorstein, Hart, p. 7).


Lorenz Hart would come to be a songwriting peer of Irving Berlin from the mid-twenties through his premature death at the age of forty-eight in 1943; but before Berlin had ever heard of his younger colleague, Hart, as budding lyricist, was paying tribute to the older songwriter.

On the occasion of his parents' silver wedding anniversary, November 6, 1911 (the year "Alexander" was published), sixteen year old Larry Hart helped his father and mother celebrate by composing and performing his own words to Berlin's already enormously popular song "Alexander's Ragtime Band." According to Hart biographer Gary Marmorstein, Hart's "version probably qualifies as his earliest surviving lyric."

So clink your glass,
Each Lad and Lass,
For Max and Frieda's wedding day.
Put on a Smile,
Make life worthwhile--
Let each wrinkle shout hooray!

Marmorstein also notes that "in this anniversary song, Larry is already employing the tools he would use for the next thirty years: warmth . . . ; gallantry . . . ; repetition when it's called for; a reference or two to booze; [and] colloquial English and German that landed easily on the ear." (Marmorstein, p. 31).



Dorothy Hart and Robert Kimball (Eds.),
The Complete Lyrics Of Lorenz Hart.
New York, Knoph, 1986
(Da Capo Press expanded, paper bound, edition 1995).

In his review of Gary Marmorstein's biography of Lorenz Hart, Brad Leithauser captures Hart as the essence of paradox:

He was a fast-talking, cigar-chomping, easy­laughing, profanity­spilling bon vivant who was fascinated with crime and the underworld. . . . He was also childlike and gentle. He was a concentrate of contradictions: an indefatigable workhorse who had to be yanked from bed in the mornings, a man-about-town who lived with his mother, an expensively tailored dandy forever in need of a shave, a soul-baring lyricist (“Why is my heart so frail, / Like a ship without a sail?”) who concealed his profoundest emotions even from intimate friends. . . . [a] celebrity who regularly shuttled in feted splendor from Hollywood to Broadway to London [but complained] of going unappreciated and unrecognized.

(from "American Songsmith," a review of A Ship Without A Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart by Gary Marmorstein, The New York Times Book Review, December 2, 2012).

 



Stephen Sondheim.
Stephen Sondheim.
Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. New York: Alfred A. Knoph, 2010.

Stephen Sondheim, though he admires Hart in some ways is a harsh critic, especially of Hart's lack of care when he writes; that is, making errors in various elements of lyric writing such as producing "mis-stressed syllables," "convoluted syntax," and "sacrifice of meaning for rhyme." Sondheim knows that criticizing Hart in this way may offend many, especially those who feel it is "heresy to criticize Hart for anything at all, but the fact is that Porter and Harburg and Fields and Loesser rarely indulge in these kinds of sloppiness, and the lyricists of my generation -- Sheldon Harnick, Fred Ebb, Lee Adams, Jerry Herman et. al -- almost never do. We take meticulousness for granted, a legacy from Porter and Harburg and Fields and Loesser, not to mention Hammerstein."

When Sondheim gets around to bestowing some praise on Hart, it includes the theme of his contradictory nature emphasized by Brad Leithauser. (See above). Sondheim writes:

Hart reveals himself more openly than any other lyricist except Hammerstein: in his case, jaunty but melancholy, forceful but vulnerable. There is a pervasive sweetness about him that comes through in even his most self-conscious work. He was verbally nimble, full of humor, and a lazy craftsman.

(See Sondheim, Finishing the Hat, p. 153.)


book cover: Gerald Mast "Can't Help Singin'"
Gerald Mast. Can't Help Singin' The American Musical on Stage and Screen. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1987.
"Hart was the most confessional of theater lyricists--the most willing and able to put his own thoughts, feelings, pains, sorrows, fears, joys, misery into words for songs of specific characters in musical plays. What he could never say aloud, even to his closest friends in private, he let characters sing in public. He was a gay bachelor who wrote the best love lyrics for women and the most joyous lyrics about falling in love and the most melancholy lyrics about falling out of love" (Mast, p. 166).

Book cover: Alec Wilder, "America's Popular Song"
Alec Wilder, American Popular Song The Great Innovators, 1900-1950, New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
"Though [Rodgers] wrote great songs with Oscar Hammerstein II, it is my belief that his greatest melodic invention and pellucid freshness occurred during his years of collaboration with Lorenz Hart . . . . I have always felt that there was an almost feverish demand in Hart's writing which reflected itself in Rodgers's melodies as opposed to the almost too comfortable armchair philosophy in Hammerstein's lyrics" (Wilder, p. 164).
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Cafe Songbook
Music-Video Cabinet:
Lorenz Hart



A Rodgers and Hart Playlist (thirteen songs -- Listen while you view this page.)
(Please complete or pause one
video before starting another.)
Rodgers' and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee (1927) on TV in a subsequent decade and century


DVD cover: Rodgers' and Hart's A Connecticut Yankee, TV production 1955
A Connecticut Yankee
(1955 TV Production)
(DVD) This 90 minute version of A Conncectiuct Yankee stars Eddie Albert and Janet Blair


Douglas Sills and Rebecca Luker perform "Thou Swell"
from A Connectiuct Yankee on a 1998 PBS TV show:
The Rodgers & Hart Story: "Thou Swell, Thou Witty."
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Lorenz Hart Songs
currently included in the
Cafe Songbook Catalog of
The Great American Songbook
  1. Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered

  2. Blue Moon

  3. The Blue Room

  4. Dancing on the Ceiling

  5. Ev'rything I've Got (belongs to You)

  6. Falling in Love with Love

  7. Glad to Be Unhappy
  8. Have You Met Miss Jones?
  9. He Was Too Good To Me
  10. I Could Write a Book
  11. I Didn't Know What Time It Was
  12. I Married an Angel
  13. I Wish I Were In Love Again
  14. Isn't It Romantic?
  15. It Never Entered My Mind
  16. It's Easy To Remember
  17. I've Got Five Dollars
  18. Johnny One-Note
  19. The Lady Is a Tramp
  20. Little Girl Blue
  21. Lover
  22. Manhattan
  23. Mimi
  24. The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
  25. Mountain Greenery

  26. My Funny Valentine

  27. My Heart Stood Still

  28. My Romance

  29. Nobody's Heart (belongs to me)

  30. A Ship Without A Sail

  31. Spring Is Here

  32. Ten Cents A Dance

  33. There's a Small Hotel

  34. This Can't Be Love

  35. This Funny World

  36. Thou Swell

  37. To Keep My Love Alive

  38. Wait Till You See Her

  39. Where or When

  40. Where's That Rainbow?

  41. With a Song in My Heart

  42. You Are Too Beautiful

  43. You Took Advantage of Me

  44. You're Nearer

  45. Yours Sincerely

Click here for a database of songs written or co-written by Lorenz Hart.
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book cover: Rodgers and Hart A Musical Anthology
Rodgers and Hart
A Musical Anthology

Hal Leonard Publications, 1984
(foreword by Dorothy Rodgers,
music and lyrics for 73 songs,
indexes by show title and song title)


"It's Easy to Remember"
sheet music for the
song from the Paramount picture Mississippi with Bing Crosby and Joan Bennett


Research Resources:
Lorenz Hart

Lorenz Hart research resources on the web (listed alphabetically by web source):
  • Amazon (publications by and about, recordings, videos, sheet music, etc.)
  • DBOPM (Database Of Popular Music: song list; awards; hit songs; co-writers
  • Discogs.com (songwriting and arranging credits)
  • The Lorenz Hart Website (includes sections on "Shows and Films," "Songs," "Discography," "Bibliography," etc.
  • Internet Broadway Database (Broadway productions and song credits)
  • Internet Off-Broadway Database (off-Broadway productions of songwriter's shows)
  • Internet Movie Database (brief biography, filmography, movie song credits)
  • Indiana University Sheet Music Collection: Lorenz Hart
  • Michael Feinstein's American Songbook (bio., photos, back stories, songs)
  • New York Public Library (catalog entries for books, personal papers, recordings, scores, etc.)
  • The New York Times (articles about or related to the songwriter):
    • Richard Lingeman, "With An Ache in His Heart." New York Times. Dec. 29, 1976. (Review of Thou Swell Thou Witty The Life and Lyrics of Lorenz Hart--PDF file requires Adobe Reader--and Marx and Clayton Rodgers and Hart Bewithched, Bothered and Bedeviled)
    • Stephen Holden. "Sunny Approach to Mordant Lyricist." New York Times. Nov. 18, 2010 (Review of Stephanie Powers cabaret show devoted to songs with lyrics by Lorenz Hart).
    • Ben Brantley, "Music, Memories and Regret," August 16, 2011, The New York Times(Review of Ten Cents a Dance -- "Ten Cents a Dance [is] John Doyle's beautiful, brooding collage of the songs of Rodgers and Hart . . . at the Williamstown Theater Festival," Williamstown MA.)
    • Brad Leithauser, American Songsmith, The New York Times Book Review, Dec. 2, 2012, (review of A Ship without a Sail: The Life of Lorenz Hart)
  • NPR Music (archive of relevant programs often including audio segments)
  • ThePeaches.com (Lorenz Hart lyrics transcriptions) (These transcriptions of Hart lyrics are mostly as sung by Ella Fitzgerald on her Rodgers and Hart Songbook album.)
  • PBS.org (links to Hart related material shown on PBS inlcuding interview with Mary Rodgers (daugter of Richard Rodgers) on the Rodgers and Hart collaboration -- PBS. org.
  • Songwriters Hall of Fame (biography and song list)
  • Time Magazine, July 8, 2002, Richard Corliss, "That Old Feeling: Heart to Hart," (essay by Time's movie critic emphasizing the differences between Rodgers' two lyricists, Hart and Hammerstein);
  • Wikipedia (Lorenz Hart article)
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Lorenz Hart research resources in print (listed chronologically):
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Credits

(Lorenz Hart page)

 

Credits for Videomakers of videos used on this page:

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Cafe Songbook
Master List
of Great American Songbook Songwriters

Names of songwriters who have written at least one song included in the Cafe Songbook Catalog of The Great American Songbook are listed below.

 

Names of songwriters with two or more song credits in the catalog (with rare exceptions) are linked to their own Cafe Songbook pages, e.g. Fields, Dorothy.

 

Names of songwriters with only one song credit in the catalog are linked to the Cafe Songbook page for that song, on which may be found information about the songwriter or a link to an information source for him or her.

 

Please note: Cafe Songbook pages for songwriters are currently in various stages of development.

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Ahlert, Fred

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Alexander, Van

Allen, Lewis

Allen, Steve

Alter, Louis

Altman, Arthur

Anderson, Maxwell

Andre, Fabian

Arlen, Harold
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Atwood, Hub

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Barnes, Billy

Barris, Harry

Bassman, George

Belle, Barbara

Bennett, Dave

Bergman, Alan and Marilyn

Berlin, Irving

Bernie, Ben

Bernstein, Leonard

Best, William "Pat"

Blackburn, John

Blackwell, Otis (a.k.a. John Davenport)

Blake, Eubie

Blane, Ralph

Blitzstein, Marc

Bloom, Rube

Bock, Jerry

Block, Martin

Boland, Clay

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Borodin, Alexander

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Boyd, Elisse

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Bricusse, Leslie

Brooks, Harry

Brooks, Shelton

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Brown, Lew

Brown, Nacio Herb

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Casucci, Leonello

Chaplin, Charlie

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Clare, Sidney

Chase, Newell

Churchill, Frank

Clarke, Grant

Clifford, Gordon

Clinton, Larry

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Coleman, Cy

Comden, Betty and Adolph Green

Conley, Larry

Connelly, Reginald

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Coslow, Sam

Creamer, Henry

Crosby, Bing

Cross, Douglas

Daniels, Charles N.
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David, Mack

Davis, Benny

Davis, Jimmy

Dee, Sylvia

De Lange, Eddie

Denniker, Paul

Dennis, Matt

De Paul, Gene

De Rose, Peter

De Sylva, B.G. (Buddy)

DeVries, John

Dietz, Howard

Distel, Sacha

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Donaldson, Walter

Dorsey, Jimmy

Dougherty, Doc

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L. E. Freeman

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Garner, Errol

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Gillespie, Haven

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Goodman, Benny

Goodwin, Joe

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Gordon, Mack

Gorney, Jay

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Goulding, Edmund

Grainger, Porter

Grand, Murray

Grant, Ian

Gray, Chauncey

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Grey, Clifford
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Green, Bud

Green, Freddie

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Hamilton, Nancy

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Hammerstein II, Oscar

Hampton, Lionel

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Hanighen, Bernie

Hanley, James F.

Harbach, Otto

Harburg, E. Y. (Yip)

Harling, W. Franke

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Hart, Lorenz

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Kahn, Gus

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Kisco, Charles

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Kosma, Joseph

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Kurtz, Manny

Laine, Frankie

Lamare, Jules (a.k.a Charles N.

Daniels and Neil Moret)

Lane, Burt
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Lawrence, Eddie

Lawrence, Jack

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Lee, Peggy

Leigh, Carolyn

Leonard, Anita

Lerner, Alan Jay
Leslie, Edgar

Levant, Oscar

Lewis, Morgan

Lewis, Sam M.

Link, Harry

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Livingston, Fud

Livingston, Jay

Livingston, Jerry

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Loesser, Frank

Loewe, Frederick

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Maschwitz, Eric

Mayer, Henry
McCarey, Leo

McCarthy, Joseph

McCarthy, Jr., Joseph

McHugh, Jimmy

McCoy, Joe

Mellin, Robert

Mercer, Johnny

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Miles, Dick

Miller, Glenn

Miller, Nathan Ned

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Morey, Larry

Moross, Jerome

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Noble, Ray

Norman, Pierre
Norton, George A.

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Sigman, Carl

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Sinatra, Frank

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Skylar, Sunny

Snyder, Ted

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Sour, Robert
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