Philip Furia discusses in detail the lyricists who wrote many of the popular songs in the years between World War I and II, when, as the author puts it, “a close relationship between the popular music industry, then known as Tin Pan Alley, and the musical comedies of Broadway and Hollywood gave the songs of that era, as I try to show in the book, their distinctive character.”

The book is arranged with Irving Berlin, Lorenz Hart, Ira Gershwin, Cole Porter, Oscar Hammerstein, and Johnny Mercer each receiving a full chapter. A chapter is shared by Howard Dietz and Yip Harburg and one by Dorothy Fields and Leo Robin. There are also chapters devoted to “Alley Standards,” “Early Alley,” “Lyricists of the 1920’s,” “Hollywood Lyricists,” and “Jazz Lyricists.”

This is the first book to read if you want to better understand the lyrics of the songs that have become the jazz standards, and it is excellent for research or recreation. All references to songs and composers are included in the index.

Philip Furia is a University of Minnesota professor of English and author of Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer; Irving Berlin: A Life in Song; Ira Gershwin: The Art of the Lyricist; American Song Lyricists 1920-1960 (Dictionary of Literary Biography); and Pound’s Cantos Declassified.