THE RHYMING RADICAL

“The main reason why Yip Harburg is not generally known by name today is that Finian’s Rainbow is the only stage musical on which he worked that continues to be performed. The others, like most of the films to which he contributed lyrics in the Thirties and Forties, are now forgotten–and their failure to hold the stage says much about the artistic limitations of the otherwise greatly gifted man who helped bring them into being…”