Jewish Stereo Types

So if you happen to be stuck singing one of the more annoying "BE HAPPY" songs, playing around with it is not a bad way to go: Video posted by Bootleg Better (Trust me, some of the more, um, family-friendly versions are exquisitely painful to listen to. Especially with banjos.) "Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive," by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer, was, believe it or not, nominated for an Oscar ; Mercer said the lyric came from a sermon : "I went to hear Father Divine and he had a sermon and his subject was 'you got to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.' And I said, 'Wow, that's a colorful phrase.' " *** Lyricist Johnny Mercer, although completely amazing ( he wrote the lyrics for over 1500 songs , including "Blues in the Night" (also with Harold Arlen), "One for My Baby" (also with Harold Arlen), and "Moon River" (not with Harold Arlen--that's a Henry Mancini melody)), was not Je...

Ever notice how often "happy" songs are, strictly speaking, not happy? If you actually listen to the lyrics of "Get Happy" by Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, you'll see that umm, well, hmmm, really, I mean...look, it's about dying. In a manner of speaking. But, you know, get happy! Nevertheless, this performance makes me happy every time anyway--Judy Garland singing "Get Happy" against Barbra Streisand singing Milton Ager and Jack Yellen's "Happy Days Are Here Again": Video posted by TheJudyRoomVideos *** We have a bunch of Jewish songwriters here: Harold Arlen ("Over the Rainbow," "Stormy Weather," "The Man That Got Away") was the son of a synagogue cantor ; I can't find much about Ted Koehler ("Get Happy," "Stormy Weather," "Moon Over Dixie")'s personal life, but he seems to be counted among Jewish lyricists ; and both Milton Ager ("Last of the Red Hot Ma...