“I have a feeling that rabbit is late….” —Marshall Barer, “Lost in Wonderland” “Why don’t you go all the way and marry Truman Capote?” —Reputedly said by Richard Rodgers to his daughter Mary when she announced her desire to marry Marshall Barer.
arshall Barer (1923-1998) wrote the lyrics to one musical which was indisputably a hit: Once Upon a Mattress (1959, music by Mary Rodgers). He also wrote the lyrics to one musical which was indisputably a failure: Pousse-Café (1966, music by Duke Ellington). Yet if you look either show up in Gerald Bordman’s authoritative American Musical Theatre, you will find no mention of Marshall Barer. Bordman seems completely unaware of Barer’s existence—though he does note that Mary Rodgers’ songs for Once Upon a Mattress are “skillful and musicianly, but never memorable.” “In “Barer of Good News”—Good News was not a show Barer wrote—Jaime J. Weinman writes,
Barer was part of a generation of songwriters who came of age when the Broadway musical was at the height of its popularity, and started breaking into musical theatre at a time when many of the “classic” composers and writers were going into semi-retirement (Berlin and Porter, to name two, didn’t do much after the mid-’50s). The chief characteristic of these new musical theatre writers is that for them, musical theatre had a history: unlike the previous generation of musical-theatre writers, who just wrote in the prevailing style of the time and then did their own twist on it, the ’50s generation broke into musical theatre at a time when popular music was starting to change, and when writing in a classic musical-theatre style was already starting to seem like a conscious stylistic choice.
Barer was, like his rabbit, late, and his awareness of that fact meant that he was likely to produce both homage and parody and that nostalgia was a considerable element in his work. One of the problems he faced was how to make nostalgia alive, vital—current. An admirer of both Rodgers and Hart and Rodgers and Hammerstein, he wrote songs with—and nearly married—Richard Rodgers’ daughter, Mary. (This despite the fact that Barer was primarily a gay man.) (1/) An admirer of Johnny Mercer (whom Barer described to Ken Bloom as his “idol”), he wrote lyrics to Hoagy Carmichael’s music—and attempted a kind of Johnny Mercer imitation in both his lyrics and singing style in the Duke Ellington collaboration, Pousse-Café. Barer’s amazing “Shall We Join the Ladies”—“I mean join them to each other and make one big lady”—is a parody of Noel Coward’s comic songs and is sung by Barer in an appropriately daffy British accent. The music there is by frequent collaborator David Ross. (The song was performed by Joe Guthrie in the 2000 film, The Broken Hearts Club.) Barer’s send up of “Send In the Clowns” asks “How in the hell / Did warmed-over Ravel / Ever get to the top of the charts?” and in “The R-H Factor” he exclaims, “Oh, what a heartwarming Hammerstein lyric and oh, what a beautiful Dick / Rodgers melody.” In one of the lyricist’s most successful pieces, the wonderfully witty and tender “On Such a Night As This,” he references Judy Garland’s performance of “The Boy Next Door” in the 1944 film, Meet Me in Saint Louis; the music to that film was written by Hugh Martin, the same man who wrote the music to “On Such a Night As This.” (2/) Again and again eroticism and nostalgia mingle in Barer’s lyrics. This is from “Beyond Compare”:
Who could compose Your valentine? Not Billy Rose Nor Gertrude Stein Only a Hart like Larry might Tell you what burns in mine tonight
When Cole Porter wrote lyrics like that the people he named were often alive. One of the verses to “You’re the Top”—a title Barer’s title echoes—refers favorably to Benito Mussolini! Though paradox haunts Barer’s lyrics as much as it does Porter’s, Barer was guilty of no such embarrassing topicality. The Beatles and rock ’n’ roll were a sensation during the time he was writing—and he enthusiastically embraced the psychedelic, even writing a paean to marijuana with music by Antonio Carlos Jobim—but neither the Beatles nor rock ’n’ roll find a place in his work. How many post 1960 lyrics refer to the once famous film star Dolores Costello? Barer’s “Here Come the Dreamers” (music, Hugh Martin) does. “You Can’t Go Home Again”—an exquisite song Barer wrote with David Raksin, the composer of “Laura”—quotes Thomas Wolfe, not Jack Kerouac or Ken Kesey: “a stone, a leaf, a door.” At one point Barer’s words echo Lorenz Hart in addition to Wolfe: the singer announces that the past is utterly beyond reach—“The where and when / Of what was then / Is gone for good / Look homeward, angel nevermore.” At the same time, however, Raksin’s music sounds like something out of a 40s film noir: the past constantly asserting itself in a lush, wonderful way. The brilliant Barer-Hugh Martin song, “Wasn’t It Romantic?” is deliberately contrapuntal to Rodgers and Hart’s classic “Isn’t It Romantic?”; “Wasn’t It Romantic?” begins,
Though the world has grown cold, we can banish the chill We can order the present to vanish at will We can darken the room We can start the machine And from here in the gloom As we gaze at the screen We can step into yesterday still We can step into yesterday still
In the original conception of the song, Jeanette MacDonald was to sing “Wasn’t It Romantic?” as a duet with her image on film singing “Isn’t It Romantic?” from the 1932 film, Love Me Tonight. Past and present again collide, but the Barer-Martin song promises, “I will know romance again.” Unfortunately, MacDonald died before the project could come to fruition, and the musical was never produced. (3/)
With his tongue only half in his cheek, Barer famously described himself as “irrepressible, wafer-thin, rapier-keen, Anglo-sexual, psycho-Semitic, almost unbearably gifted.” Not once does he call himself “successful.” One of his most beautiful songs was written with Duke Ellington. “Settle for Less” might well have autobiographical overtones:
The first thing you learn Is the dream must be tall A dream that is small Ain’t worth dreaming at all But reach for the stars And an apple may fall From the sky If you’re lucky, an apple may fall from the star-spangled sky The next thing you learn Is to get through each day Without ever once Letting hope slip away For once you are hopeless You might as well lay Down and die Yes, you might as well lay yourself down in the gutter and die The next thing you learn Is the hardest to learn But you’ll use it as long as you live It’s the oldest of rules And the wisest of rules And it’s simply “You get what you give” But the last thing you learn Is the best thing, I guess When the dream has gone smash And you’re left with the mess And you know in a flash You must settle for less Than that castle in Spain Or that certain caress What a bless- ing to learn you are willing to settle for less
Marshall Barer had a career as an illustrator and designer as well as a lyricist. (The cover he drew for Pousse-Café, the only example of his art I’ve seen, is quite wonderful.) His best-known song brought him money but no pride: the theme to Mighty Mouse, “Here I Come to Save the Day.” He claimed that the lyric was written in the back seat of a taxicab on the way to the recording session. In the 1970s, after many failures, Barer gave up on New York and moved to Venice, California, where he opened an art gallery and became one of the more flamboyant Venice characters. As cabaret artists began to take up his work, he continued to write songs but never attempted another Broadway production. (His collaborator on Once Upon a Mattress, Mary Rodgers, also became disenchanted with Broadway: discouraged by the fact that she could find no producer for her version of Member of the Wedding—a project on which she had worked for three years—she turned to other modes of expression, notably the extremely successful novel/film, Freaky Friday.)
Gifted with a limited but charming singing voice, Barer became a cabaret artist himself, performing his work primarily at The Gardenia in Los Angeles—a venue used recently by singer B.J. Ward to present an evening of Barer’s songs. She describes him as wearing a cape at these performances and sometimes encumbered by failing over-dubbing equipment. In Venice he became known among his friends as “the world’s best living lyricist and the world’s worst houseguest.” Ward comments, “Things caught fire when Marshall visited you.” Yet people continued to love him. His social persona seems to have been that of the good bad boy—the charmer who can get away with things. If mothers populate Barer’s lyrics—as they do Cole Porter’s—so do children: Barer seems to have had no trouble contacting his “inner child,” and that child was frequently—in Red Skelton’s phrase—the “mean widdle kid,” the bad boy. Though “I’ve Heard A Lot About You” was written at the request of Marlene Dietrich, who suggested the theme, one feels that Barer was also musing on some of the ramifications of his own “reputation”:
I’ve heard a lot about you I’ve heard the stories they tell I’ve never seen you before And yet I know you so well My spies have warned me you are fickle They’ve informed me you are cold But I wish I had a nickel For every lie I’ve been told The gossips all over town Attack you mercilessly But I don’t care what they say Because I like what I see Just relax and you’ll discover What a good friend I can be If you will just disregard What you have heard about me
(The song was introduced in 1956 by Tallulah Bankhead in Welcome, Darlings.)
American popular songs are one of the places American light verse goes when it decides to remove itself from the often stuffy slopes of Parnassus. Even Ogden Nash—an immensely popular light verse poet—wrote lyrics for musicals. Barer’s status as Broadway failure meant that he could write a kind of song which was not limited to the requirements of Broadway—so that his failure was freeing in a way. Meditative, “poetic” songs such as “It Might Be Nice” (music, Dean Fuller) and “Saint Augustine” (music, Anita Nye) were the result of this freedom:
We used to go to Saint Augustine In the winter months Many years ago I never cared for Saint Augustine I preferred Shaker Heights And snow But now, with the first hint of autumn chill At my window sill Here in the gathering dark, It might not be bad to be warming my bones In sunny Saint Augustine Park. Come to Saint Augustine Quaint old Saint Augustine Sit beside the Fountain of Youth Come and stay in Saint Augustine Play in Saint Augustine Mahjonng and gin and vermouth But now, with the first hint of autumn chill At my window sill Here in the gathering dark, It might not be bad to be warming my bones In sunny Saint Augustine Park.
Jaime J. Weinman suggests that
Barer may just have been too old-fashioned a lyricist for Broadway. Like Hart, he wasn’t really a songwriter who wrote for character or theatrical situation; instead he wrote about things that interested him, in his own voice, not the voice of the character. That’s fine for cabaret material, but not so fine for the modern Broadway musical, and that's part of the reason why a lot of Barer’s show songs work better as stand-alone cabaret songs.
I have some problems with this conception of “the modern Broadway musical.” Rodgers and Hammerstein’s insistence on songs being “in character” and on a plot that “makes sense” was in a way code for bringing back the operetta—a form in which Hammerstein felt very comfortable. I can’t help wondering whether Hammerstein’s “I’m as corny as Kansas in August / I’m as normal as blueberry pie” shows more depth of characterization than Lorenz Hart’s “I work at the Palace Ballroom / But gee, that Palace is cheap” or Cole Porter’s “Love for Sale.” In any case, it is not true that Barer’s songs are primarily “in his own voice.” Many of them resemble dramatic monologues, with an implied character speaking the words. The mad Englishman singing “Shall We Join the Ladies” is one example, as is Barer’s turn as a Glenn Campbell clone in “Promise Me No Promises”—one of the few lyrics for which Barer himself supplied the music. In “Bongalee” (music by Dean Fuller) the protagonist is a calypso singer, as is the protragonist of “Christmas is An Island” (music by Marshall Barer and Lance Ong), a song delightfully interpreted, with Barer’s active participation, by Rosemary Clooney. Perhaps the most extraordinary of these character songs was one Barer co-wrote with Anita Nye, the wife of the late Louis Nye. The singer is a homeless person who is experiencing the first signs of Alzheimer’s; he has forgotten his own name:
Begging your pardon, Perhaps you could help me, sir What is my name? You seem a kind And intelligent person Do you know my name? You look familiar to me Maybe I look the same I knew it yesterday Well as I know my own— Voice on the telephone Why are you smiling? Do you think it’s comical— Some kind of game? I can assure you It isn’t so funny Forgetting your name I should be heading on home But I don’t know where to aim If anyone knows me— It’s right on the tip of my— Who in the hell am I? Some people whisper And point when they pass me, “Now, ain’t that a shame?” Sometimes I wonder If anyone ever Remembered my name No one can see what I was Because of what I became If someone remembers— It’s right on the tip of my— What’s my goddamn name?
Anita Nye’s rendition of this stunning song—part of the very difficult to find, indeed withdrawn Painted Smiles CD, The time has come! The Songs of Marshall Barer—is unforgettable. None of Barer’s verbal pyrotechnics are in evidence in this lyric, but the emotional intensity of the song is so strong that we scarcely notice their absence. If Barer’s songs usually depend upon a knowing awareness of the past, here—tragically—the past is utterly lost: “No one can see what I was / Because of what I became.” (4/)
Marshall Barer’s pun on “dick” in “The R-H Factor” removes him forever from the world of Rodgers and Hammerstein. (Cole Porter made the same pun in Kiss Me, Kate.) But, in other moods, Barer could be as blandly affirmative as Oscar Hammerstein was in “You’ll Never Walk Alone”—a lyric which might (and perhaps should) grace a Hallmark card. Unlike Hammerstein, who remained discreetly vague on the subject, Barer actually goes to the extent of bringing “God” into his lyric. Which “God,” you might ask? Never mind: we’re talking about God. This is “I Hold the Golden Morning in My Hand,” also from the Painted Smiles CD:
The autumn sun smiles on the land And I can hold the morning in my hand The rip’ning [sic] vines are hung with gold And I’m in thrall with all that I behold I can taste the mint that grows beside the pool I can hear the sound of laughter from the school How green the hills, how fair the land Where I can hold the morning in my hand The swift white birds came in upon the eastern breeze And now they light, Lantern-bright, High in the cinnamon trees I watch the sun arise Into the smiling skies And God, I think, is smiling too I’ve never before seen his eyes Looking quite so blue! He smiles to see A man so free As free as He Intended men to be With each new dawn I rise and shine And count once more what miracles are mine I can drink or not the warm October wine I can take the fruit or leave it on the vine How grand the view from where I stand And hold the golden morning in my hand!
Leroy Anderson’s music is as blandly inspirational as Barer’s words—words which were, incidentally, not authorized by Anderson. Yet there is a moment at the end of the song which perhaps rings true—which is perhaps even “autobiographical”: “A man so free / As free as He / Intended men to be.” Whatever God’s “intent” may have been—and Barer is happy to tell us exactly what it was—it is certainly a fact that “freedom” meant a great deal to Marshall Barer. Jaime J. Weinman calls Barer a “rhymeaholic”—which is accurate. But the build-up of rhyme upon rhyme, as in Porter’s “flying too high with some guy in the sky is my idea of nothing to do,” not only calls attention to the lyricist’s skill but suggests a kind of freedom: these rhymes should end, but—listen!—they can go on forever. The feeling is illusory, of course—rhymes always end—but it is nevertheless something we experience as the rhymes pile up delightedly upon one another. Is this, at least in part, the kind of freedom Barer is referring to at the conclusion of “I Hold the Golden Morning in My Hand”? Freedom from what? Perhaps freedom from his mother—the goal of many a “bad boy.” But, beyond this, freedom from restraints of all kinds. (5/) Barer’s many “eccentricities”—the stuff of gossip among his friends—were I think at bottom an assertion of his freedom, even if, free as he was, he was simultaneously the prisoner of certain forms, forms beyond which he never moved. Who understands freedom better than a prisoner? And if exact rhyme embodies a kind of freedom, it also embodies a kind of restraint. Barer mentions Gertrude Stein but never writes like her. Nonetheless, his message was perhaps a similar one to hers. Look at me. Value me. Even in the midst of grievous restraints and failures, I’m free. Wouldn’t you like to experience my freedom?
If one toucan Can can-can As well as a man can And two can perform pas de deux Let us be like two toucans in tutus What one toucan can do, two can too— What one toucan can do, two can too
One final note: this paper wouldn’t have been possible without the encouragement and considerable help of Marshall Barer’s close friend, Reg Fulton. It was Fulton who introduced me to Barer’s work and who supplied me with nearly all of the examples I have quoted. He also told me a secret. There is a drawing of Barer on some of the CDs I received from Reg. It is signed “Jean” with a star appended—the way Jean Cocteau signed his drawings. Barer had spent some time in Paris. Was the drawing by Cocteau? No, it was by Barer; the signature was a forgery, a wish, a fiction. Barer was not Jean Cocteau. And yet… And yet…
1. Barer’s song “The Time Has Come” is a hymn to gay liberation. The song perhaps contains a subtle play on the word “us”:
But such as we Who choose to see What others still Refuse to see Who brave The night To save The right To heed a different drum For us the time has come The time for us has come
The first “us” refers to those “Who choose to see / What others still / Refuse to see” and thus could refer to anyone, gay or straight, who understands what is happening: these are the people who understand, who “choose to see.” The second “us,” however, refers only to gays: “The time for us”—gay people—“has come.” Barer and his friend Val Holley participated in the Gay March in Washington.
2. Barer’s title, “On Such a Night as This” may be a reference to a line in “Isn’t It Romantic?”: “Isn’t it romantic / Merely to be young / On such a night as this!” The word “night” has many resonances. The original title of the musical for which this song was written was “A Little Night Music.” Further: the title of the musical in which Jeanette MacDonald sang “Isn’t It Romantic?” is “Love Me Tonight.”
3. The CD Michael Feinstein Sings the Hugh Martin Songbook is a fine introduction to this somewhat forgotten songwriter. Martin himself appears on the CD.
4. In his notes to The time has come Barer remarks that he wrote the song “in memory of a beloved aunt who died of Alzheimer’s Disease.”
5. Barer’s humor frequently has a wild, anarchic quality: “Not Indochina. Not even Outdo’ (Outdoor) China”; “Don’t blame me: that’s San Andreas’s fault”; “In such a world one can’t pretend / To know what leads around the bend / Of the yellow brick road that used to lead to Oz / But Oz (ours) is not to question why / Oz is but to do and die.” Even the universal approbation of “honesty” in relationships is questioned by Barer: “Tell a lie…You may open up the door / To a more important truth / Than you’ve ever known before…It may never harm relations to tell a lie.”
© Jack Foley