Spring 1998 P G

Plum Lines The quarterly journal o f The Wodehouse Society Vol. 18 No 1 Spring 1998 p G. w ODEHOUSE: 1YiU(IST By W. E Richardson A talk delivered at the Chicago convention of die Wodehouse Society, October, 1997- Will Richardson, a new acquaintance for most of us at the convention, is a New Zealand classical scholar who is co-audioring a book with President Dan Garrison. Most of us know that Plum was a prominent musical comedy lyricist in die early part of die century. Fewer of us know how excellent he was. Pm indebted to David Jasen for die rare theatrical ephemera that illustrate this article. They are copied from hisThe Theatre ofP.G. Wodehouse, Batsford, London, 1979. Lara Cazalet, the soloist for several of the songs discussed here, is, of course, Plum’s great-granddaughter. She is an accomplished performer and was a very welcome guest at the convention. — OM first encountered the name P. G. Wodehouse, not on did not stop then, for in 1971 at the age of 90 he was still the title page of a novel, but at the top of the published enthusiastically composing lyrics and writing to Guy words and music of a song. Bolton about them. This It was one of the songs from was an activity which he ■: • :is:®: O'SSSSi v/i 7 M ; w m £ m3KWAW £ £ U CC E $ S ,::: :¥:KW:*i • > : .j' •':!!;::: I i! i j j j j:!! the 1927 musical Showboat. The m? t. a.shale.. enjoyed and which was an music for this show was writ ...— —.. ...--+•......r..............- important part of his very ten by Jerome Kern and the long life. lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein PIT Ml- IN MV LITTLE CEU, I then made another dis II; but at the top of the song __........................... covery—that among those called “Bill,” and only on this SONGn •*.............. competent to judge, his •...... ..Jilt!!... one, the sheet music said: FROM THE MUSICAL FARCE reputation as a lyric writer, “Words by Oscar Hammer- IBBIBM especially in the nineteen- stein II and P. G . Wodehouse.” twenties, was second to That aroused my curiosity; and none. Frances Donaldson this paper is the result. WH,Trf|py : § |||i \ §|§. ' J l l i i notes in her biography that Among the first things that G .E .WODEHOUSE “ Guy Bolton insisted again I discovered was that this was COM PQSSO Sy liilf: and again in conversation by no means the only lyric with me that ‘Plum was the Plum ever composed; in fact FREDERICK ROSSB ^ tops5 ” and confirmatory his first lyric to be actually III?- SI /% ■ evidence appears in her col performed on stage was writ ’ ' ......... Ir'»i<Z1Z HttX---------- " lection of his letters, where London ten as far back as 1904 when Ho p w o o d &C r e w . r ■' m S t r e e t . W. it is recorded that on his he was 23 years old. The 80th birthday Plum received Donaldson biography lists 25 a telegram which said: “ On shows for which he provided this happy day I wish to one or more lyrics; they range thank you on behalf of Larry over a period from 1904-1928, Hart, Oscar Hammerstein and this was clearly his most Sheet music from the 23-year-old Plum’s first and myself for all you taught active and successful period theatrical work, “soured slightly,” as David says, “by us through the years.” It was at this type of writing. But he an initial mistake.” signed Richard Rodgers; and this tribute involving three of the greatest names in The sun, whose rays American musical theatre made it clear that Guy Bolton are all ablaze was not exaggerating. with ever-living glory, It was by now obvious that Plum had not merely does not deny written lyrics but had made a genuine and valuable his majesty — contribution to the art of writing them. That suggested he scorns to tell a story! the next stage in my search: what exactly was his contri He don’t exclaim, bution? What was it that he had taught Lorenz Hart T blush for shame, and others to do? These questions were much more so kindly be indulgent.’ difficult to answer. I noted, for instance, one writer’s But, fierce and bold, reference to Plum as “the most forgotten and in fiery gold underappreciated of the major lyricists,” and after a he glories all effulgent! while I was able to confirm from my own experience that critical assessment of him as a lyric writer is indeed I mean to rule the earth almost completely lacking. But I did find a useful as he the sky— remark in a 1996 biography of the greatest of them all, we really know our worth Ira Gershwin, in which the author wrote that “Ira, the sun and I! along with other nascent lyricists, looked to the En glish writer P. G. Wodehouse, who demonstrated that Observe his flame, song lyrics, even when the music came first, could that placid dame, sparkle with as much wit as light verse.” It was the bit the moon’s Celestial Highness; about “ even when the music came first” that showed there’s not a trace me where I must start: I must first set Plum in his upon her face proper place in the history of writing words for musical o f diffidence or shyness: shows. she borrows light that, through the night, ortunately, I had a well defined starting-point. It is mankind may all acclaim her! F widely accepted that the most important founding And, truth to tell, event in the history of American musical theatre was she lights up well, the New York production in 1879 o f Gilbert and so I, for one, don’t blame her! Sullivan’s H.M.S. Pinafore: one writer comments that “its success was phenomenal by any criteria [and] dem Ah, pray make no mistake, onstrated to American writers and managers the artistic we are not shy; and commercial possibilities of artfully conceived, co we’re very wide awake, herent musical plays.” It was therefore with particular the moon and I! interest that I read the anecdote in Wodehouse’s-Bm^ on the Girls about his visit to the house o f Sir William This stands as a poem in its own right, and it inspired Gilbert for lunch in June 1903—only a year before Plum Sullivan to set it to one of his most famous tunes. got his first lyric performed on the musical stage—for it links Plum with the man who helped to start it all. ne person, however, was not entirely happy with When Gilbert and Sullivan were composing their O this arrangement: the composer, who felt irk shows they followed an invariable system: Gilbert wrote somely restricted by having to work to a format already the book and lyrics and, when the whole thing was rigidly laid down by the previously-composed lyrics. complete, passed it on to Sullivan to compose the And around the turn of the century a revolutionary idea music. This was the standard method for the period: developed: maybe it would be possible to compose composers were used to taking words and setting them songs the other way round, writing the music first and (i.e. to music). It meant that the lyric writer was free to then fitting words to it. In the notes to a collection of compose artistically finished poems to be transformed his lyrics first published in 1949 Oscar Hammerstein II into songs for the various characters in the work. For made some interesting suggestions as to how this idea instance, in The M ikado there is a young bride who arose: it came partly, he said, from the practice of expresses her resolve to surpass in beauty everybody translating foreign shows for performance on the Ameri else at the wedding in the following formal poem: can stage, and partly from the rising popularity of dance music, in which the music manifestly had prece- 2 Plum Lines V0I18 No 1 Spring 199% deuce over the lyric. But the important thing for our problems for the singer (that is, for instance, they must purposes is that Plum always wrote in this way, and was not contain any awkward consonant clusters which thus the first of the great lyricists to prove that it might trip up the performer’s tongue). It was Plum actually was possible, and that the resultant songs who first showed how to achieve this and produce would serve just as well as those composed in the something poetical into the bargain. traditional fashion. He received the respect of the later lyricists of the American stage because it was he more ere, by contrast with the one from The Mikado than anyone who taught them how to do it; and in fact H that we had earlier, is a song that was written in two of the great names mentioned earlier, Ira Gershwin this way. This one was written for a revue called Miss and Lorenz Hart, always wrote their lyrics for music 1917\ Jerome wrote the music and then passed it on to that had already been Plum to supply words. It is called ccGo, Little Boat” and composed. And Plum is now regarded as one of the two best songs in the actually preferred to show. do it like this. He once (Lara Cazalet sings “Go, Little Boat” ) remarked: ccIf I write a lyric without hav ing to fit it to a tune, In order to make a critical assessment of this lyric, I always make it too which is from Plum’s early period, we must strip it of its much like a set of light music; and in doing this we need to remember that the verse, much too regu words were never intended to stand on their own: they lar in metre.

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