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On Broadway

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3rAiwP8IBg 

Yip Harburg was a champion of racial and gender equality. Also, he wrote "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." That's enough for one life. But on top of that, he wrote "Down With Love."


This is an "I Want" song--but the wish is a wish to commit violence. To murder and stuff a dove. It's an "I Want" song for someone like Sweeney Todd.

Down with love--with flowers and rice and shoes.
Down with love--the root of all midnight blues.
Down with things that give you that well-known pain...
Take that moon, wrap it in cellophane.

Standard writing advice says, "Use the white space. Pay attention to what a character omits. This matters as much as what a character chooses to advertise." In a catalogue of romantic cliches, Harburg's speaker lets us know exactly what her last six months have been like. Without telling the story, she nevertheless "tells the story."

Down with songs that moan about night and day.
Down with love--yes, take it away, away.

Take it away. Take it away.
Give it back to the birds and the bees and the Viennese.....

There's an interesting shift. First, the speaker says, "Take it AWAY, away." Then, moving into the bridge, she changes her emphasis. "TAKE it away. TAKE it away." She becomes committed to action. "TAKE it. GIVE it back to the birds. Brother, let's STUFF that dove. Down with love."

This song seems effortless, but it's graceful and repeatedly surprising. It builds from general peevishness to galvanizing fury. It's a gem.
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