Ira Gershwin

Ira Gershwin [Gershvin, Israel]
(b New York, 6 Dec 1896; d Beverly Hills, CA, 17 Aug 1983). American lyricist.

He submitted light verse to newspapers and periodicals as a student and while working at various jobs before joining his brother George Gershwin to write songs. Their first song to receive a public hearing was The Real American Folk Song, a salute to ragtime, which was introduced by Nora Bayes in Ladies First (1918). Although Gershwin collaborated with other composers (at first under the pseudonym Arthur Francis to avoid being judged by George’s reputation), his close partnership with his brother extended from 1924, when they wrote their first musical comedy, Lady be Good!, until George’s death in 1937. In addition to more than a dozen Broadway shows, including the first musical comedy to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize for drama, Of Thee I Sing (1931), they also contributed songs to a number of films. After George’s death Ira worked with a succession of composers, including Weill (Lady in the Dark, 1941), Kern (Cover Girl, 1944), Schwartz (Park Avenue, 1946), and Arlen (A Star is Born, 1954).

During his lifetime, Ira Gershwin was considered by many to be the less talented of the brothers and they rarely accorded his lyrics the same attention as that of his contemporaries such as Hart or Porter. Subsequently, however, Gershwin’s lyrics have come to be considered among the finest in popular American culture and recent revivals and new recordings of his works have earned him a prominence he rarely enjoyed during his long career.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, Gershwin presented no consistent view of life in his lyrics. His verses are generally humorous and sunny, and make frequent recourse to such slang shortcuts as ‘gloom can jump in the riv’’. He had a deep understanding of his brother’s music, and established at the Library of Congress a Gershwin Archive consisting of carefully annotated documents mostly associated with George. He published a collection of his lyrics, with discursive annotations, as Lyrics on Several Occasions (New York, 1959, 2/1997).