E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who wrote the words to "Over the Rainbow," "Old Devil Moon" and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?," was honored today (April 28) with a commemorative U.S. postage stamp. How cool is that?

According to this article in Playbill:

The United States Postal Service's new 37-cent commemorative postage stamp shows a picture of Harburg smiling on his older years, with the words "Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue" floating around him.

I've always been a huge fan of Finian's Rainbow (and yes, I appeared as a chorus member in my High School production) written by Harburg (with music by Burton Lane) but I didn't know that Finian's Rainbow was the first Broadway show in which black and white performers danced together.

Apparently this was pretty typical for Yarburg whose passion for social causes "seeped into his shows". The article says:

A wildly playful writer who penned antic verse (and choice romantic lyrics) for the musicals Bloomer Girl, Finian's Rainbow, Jamaica, The Happiest Girl in the World, Darling of the Day, Flahooley and the film The Wizard of Oz, Harburg (1896-1981) was also fiercely supportive of liberal social causes. His political feelings often seeped into his shows, offering views on slavery, freedom, women's suffrage, class, the arms race, war and more.

Women's suffrage? Yip Yip hooray!

Of course, he is most famous for the classic "Over the Rainbow", co-written with Harold Arlen. It was named the number one film song of all time by the American Film Institute, and in 2001 it was chosen as the greatest song of the 20th century in a Recording Industry Association of America/National Endowment for the Arts poll.

Over the Rainbow...Finian's Rainbow...I guess he liked rainbows!

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