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IN THE DAYS when popular song “lyrics” consisted of more than a reiteration of one-line illiteracies, the men who wrote them were fond of alleging that Noah Webster had defined songwriting as “a very unpredictable business.”

Noah Webster had done nothing of the sort but the gag expresses a truth about song lyrics: no one, repeat, no one, can tell in advance what songs will hit and which will miss. Furthermore, no one can explain post facto unequivocally the reason for success or failure.

What sort of men spend their lives in such a never-never certain land? Though they are diverse they have one thing in common: they are oblivious to the perils of insecurity, to the inconveniences of being up today and down tomorrow.

Successful lyric writers are those whose earnings from hits last through the lean periods of misses and there have even been a few lyric writers who have been prosperous for an entire lifetime. Paul Francis Webster – no kin to Noah – is such a one. He has written lyrics for more than 40 years and possesses not only three Academy Awards but also a folio Shakespeare and a collection of the autographs of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

He was born in NYC on December 20, ’07, and grew up in Lawrence, then a predominantly summertime suburb on the north shore of Long Island. His father, a dress manufacturer, was sufficiently prosperous to send him to Horace Mann School, a private institution that was, and is, an adjunct of Columbia University’s Teachers’ College. His roommate there was Richard Starr Untermeyer, son of the poet-anthologist, from whom he learned about rhythm and rhyme.

He did not graduate from Horace Mann. He attended New York University for only three years. Then, after one semester at Cornell, he “went to sea.” He was a deck-boy on the “SS independence,” a tramp freighter which traded along the China coast and transported high explosives to Haiphong and Saigon By the time the “SS Independence” got back to NYC Webster had be come an able-bodied seaman – and disillusioned about finding high ad ventures on the high seas.

He got a job teaching dancing al Arthur Murray’s and one evening, while attending a basketball game at Woodmore Academy, which was not far from Lawrence, his entire future was settled – out of the blue. A casual acquaintance named John Jacob Loeb – a first cousin of the Richard Loeb of the Leopold-Loch murder case – asked Webster if he’d like to write a song with him. “Nothing I had said or done could have caused Loeb to suspect I had a talent in the area of lyrics,” Webster says. “It was just one of those inexplicable things that do happen.” But he adds: “It’s true I had loved music from childhood.”

Webster also says: “We made every mistake in the book. The song was 64 bars instead of the customary 32, and had a range of an octave and five instead of an octave.” They called it “My Religion Is You,” and Loeb got it published – by the Fed Star Publishing Co., which went bankrupt soon thereafter. Later on “My Religion Is You” became Morton Downey’s theme song.

Their second song, “There’s Rhythm in the River,” was sung by George Dewey Washington in a Paramount short without their permission, and they sued. They were paid for the song’s use and their names were added to the film credits.

Their third song, “Two Little Blue Eyes,” became a hit after they “had cut Rudy Vallee in.” In those days radio stars insisted on being given partial writing credit on the songs they introduced in order to share in the copyright.

When no NYC publisher would accept their fourth song, “Masquerade,” Webster and Loeb went to Chicago in the hope of showing it to Paul Whiteman, who was appearing at the Edgewater Beach Club. It took them three days and nights to get Whiteman’s ear, but when they did he liked “Masquerade”; turned it over to Ferde Grofe, one of the great arrangers of those days; and introduced it when he brought his band back to NYC. It became an international hit.

After Webster and Loeb had done several more songs together, a music publisher named Georgie Joy sent Webster a lead sheet of a tune by Lew Pollack, who, with Erno Rapee, had written “Diane” and “Charmaine.” “Pollack was almost twice my age,” Webster says. “I hadn’t met him and our collaboration was chiefly by mail. We called the song ‘Two Cigarettes in the Dark.’ I met Pollack during the time it was building up into a hit.”

It was “Two Cigarettes in the Dark” that got Webster to Hollywood. “Winfield Sheehan, then head of Fox production,” Webster says, “was in NYC and was looking for a team of songwriters for Shirley Temple. He decided on Pollack and me. I was astonished by the swiftness with which it all happened.”

Webster and Pollack wrote songs for Shirley Temple’s THE LITTLE COLONEL and OUR LITTLE GIRL; for Warner Baxter’s UNDER THE PAMPAS MOON; and in ’35 wrote their first complete film score (for DRESSED TO KILL, staffing Clive Brook). At RKO they did the songs for a Bobby Breen film called RAINBOW ON THE RIVER, and then returned to Fox for SHOOTING HIGH.

Then, at a Hollywood party, Webster met “a socialite of Spanish extraction named Gloria Benguiat,” and in ’37 married her. They are still married, and have two sons, Guy and Roger, both of whom are professional photographers.

After his marriage Webster freelanced and wrote the lyrics for the songs in such films as VOGUES OF 1938; YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE; FISHERMAN’S WHARF; PRESENTING LILY MARS AS THOUSANDS CHEER; and GHOST CATCHERS. In ’41 he worked wild Duke Ellington on the songs of “progressive” Negro musical called JUMP FOR JOY, which featured Ellington and Dorothy Dandridge and introduced the well-known blues song “I Got It Bad and That Ain’t Good.”

The following year Webster passed up a chance to make a fortune Glenn Wallichs, who operated a small music store in Hollywood or one of the corners of Sunset and Vine, decided to form a recording company and call it “Capitol Records.” He offered Webster and the late Ray Henderson a one-fifth interest for $4000. “The shellac used in record-pressing comes chiefly from New Guinea,” explains Webster, “and Henderson and I thought that if the Japs captured it shellac would be in short supply. It was a colossal mistake. When Henderson and I ‘passed’ Johnny Mercer picked up the one-fifth interest Wallichs had offered us.”

The first song with Webster lyrics to be nominated for an Academy Award was “Remember Me to Carolina,” which was written with Harry Revel for MINSTREL MAN (’44), am it was around the time of that success that Webster began working with Hoagy Carmichael. A tennis pro named Johnny Faunce brought them together, and Webster and Carmichael collaborated on “Baltimore Oriole” for TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT, which starred Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall; on “Memphis in June,” for a George Raft vehicle called JOHNNY ANGEL; and on “Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief,” which Betty Hutton sang in THE STORK CLUB. A recording of it was the first Capitol Records platter to sell a million copies. Webster and Carmichael also did “Lamplighter’s Serenade,” which is one of the firs songs Frank Sinatra recorded after leaving Tommy Dorsey. Bing Crosby and Glen Miller later recorded it.

It was while working with Carmichael that Webster began using his writing ability for things other than song lyrics. He and composer Frank Churchill got up a collection of 25 songs for children, which William Morrow published under the title The Children’s Music Box. The illustrations for it were done by Wolo, whom Webster never met.

And he collaborated with a writer named Jack Sobell on a story that became the basis of the screenplay for NORA PRENTISS, a Warner programmer of ’47 for Ann Sheridan. Ironically, when the picture was made the lyrics for its songs were not written by Webster.

In ’53 he and Sammy Fain, whom Webster had known and admired for years, were hired to do the songs for CALAMITY JANE, a filmusical vehicle for Doris Day and Howard Keel. For one of these songs, “Secret Love,” he and Fain were given their first Academy Awards. Webster says Miss Day did not at first think “Secret Love” her type of song and ordered it out of the script. But her husband-manager (the late Martin Meicher), and the head of Warners’ music department (Ray Heindorf), got her to change her mind and put it back in.

Webster’s career is full of similar instances of singers and others failing to appreciate a song’s popularity-potential. The most egregious is Mario Lanza’s refusal to record “The Loveliest Night of the Year,” which Webster and Irving Aaronson created for THE GREAT CARUSO. Lanza disliked it so much it took the composer and lyricist three months to convince him he should record it lest the sales of a recording by another singer be so great he, Lanza, would “never get the egg off his face.” The recording Lanza grudgingly made was one of the few RCA Red Seal single records to sell more than a million copies.

Webster and Fain, incidentally made a stage musical out of the screenplay of CALAMITY JANE that’ still performed in summer theatres. The adaptation of stage musicals to the screen is a commonplace, but the reverse process isn’t.

“Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” is another example of how difficult it can be to get a song off the ground. Webster and Fain wrote it for the movie of that title which 20th Century-Fox produced in ’55. Eddie Fisher, then at the apex of his career, refused to record it. So did Doris Day, who, at the time, was Webster’s next-door neighbor. 20th offered a tax-free Cadillac and $10,000 to Nat King Cole, and was turned down. So Buddy Adler, then in charge of 2Oth’s production, sent the words-n-music to his “dear friend Tony Martin,” who was singing in Las Vegas. The following day he received a telegram containing two words: “It stinks.” Finally, The Four Aces recorded it (20th subsidized the costs), and it was released at the same time as the film. It was an instant hit and Doris Day, Nat King Cole, Tony Martin, Perry Como and about a hundred other singers made recordings of it. It won the Academy Award, and has become one of the all-time top “standards,”

Another example is a song Miss Day did have tossed out of JULIE (’56) because her co-star, Louis Jourdan, kept telling her it wasn’t for her (Webster had suggested Jourdan for the part he played in JULIE). When the song was tossed out ownership of it reverted to Webster and Jerry Livingston, who had composed the music. They placed it with Frank Music in NYC and Johnny Mathis made a recording of it, which sold in hit proportions. Years later it became a hit all over again as a “Country-Western” when sung by Slim Whitman. Its title: “The Twelfth of Never.”

“April Love,” which Webster and Fain wrote for the film of the same title that starred Pat Boone and Shirley Jones, was turned down as “un-commercial” by Boone’s manager (Randy Woods), who induced the then head of 20th Century-Fox’s music department (Ted Caine) to ask Webster and Fain to write another. They refused, and circulated a petition they headlined “Case Fer and Ag’in ‘April Love’.” Alfred and Lionel Newman, Hugo Friedhofer, Eddie Powell, Pete King, Cyril Mockridge, Ken Darby and other members of Hollywood’s musical community signed it. The only name in the “ag’in” column was Randy Woods’ (inserted by Webster and Fain). Confronted by the “petition,” 20th’s production-chief Buddy Adler sided with Webster and Fain, and Boone recorded “April Love.” It became the best-selling single the Dot label ever released.

The final example of this that I shall cite concerns “Somewhere, My Love.”

In ’65 Webster attended a screening at MGM of DR. ZHIVAGO and during the intermission was surprised to hear several musicians knock Maurice Jarre’s main theme for that film (i.e., Lara’s theme). It had intrigued Webster and the following morning he called MGM and offered to write lyrics to it without advance payment. After considerable resistance Ray Conniff recorded the song Webster titled “Somewhere, My Love” for Columbia. Conniff hadn’t wanted to record it and he disliked the song so much he prevailed on Columbia’s “Artists and Repertoire man” (Ernie Altschuler) not to release it. But when Altschuicr transferred to RCA the new “A and R man” at Columbia permitted the recording to come out. Ten months later Webster saw Conniff receive, on a stage at the Beverly Hilton, the “Grammy” award for “the record of the year.”

In the ’50s and ’60s Webster wrote lyrics for the songs in many well known films, including GIANT; ANASTASIA; FRIENDLY PERSUASION (he was nominated for an Oscar); A FAREWELL TO ARMS; BOY ON A DOLPHIN; RAINTREE COUNTY; A CERTAIN SMILE (Oscar nomination); MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR (Oscar nomination for “A Very Precious Love”); INN OF THE SIXTH HAPPINESS; RIO BRAVO; GREEN MANSIONS; BELOVED INFIDEL; CIMARRON; THE STORY OF RUTH; THE ALAMO (“The Green Leaves of Summer,” written with Dimitri Tiomkin, almost defeated “Never on Sunday” for an Academy Award); EL CID (another nomination); THE GUNS OF NAVARONE; MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY (nomination); TENDER IS THE NIGHT (nomination); FIFTY-FIVE DAYS AT PEKING (nomination); THE SANDPIPER (Academy Award for “The Shadow of Your Smile”); AN AMERICAN DREAM (nomination); WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?; THE BIBLE; FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD; THE SHOES OF THE FISHERMAN; TOPAZ; AIRPORT (“The Winds of Chance”).

Webster lives with his wife in a large, Tudor-architecture house in Beverly Hills and plays a lot of tennis. He says the different musical styles of the composers with whom he’s worked never bothered him and that “I can adjust as easily to the jazz of an Ellington as to the operatic cadenzas of a Frimi.” However, it is easier for him to write lyrics before hearing the music. “I’ve completed a set of lyrics in an evening,” he says, “and I’ve sweated a month to get a set of lyrics right.” He likes Country-n-Western music “when it’s good and I dislike it when it’s bad.” Ditto for rock, except “acid rock,” which he doesn’t like.

In his lyrics he prefers to celebrate “love, the good earth, a sense of the heroic, and peace.” The songs he most wishes he had written are “The Impossible Dream,” “When the World Was Young,” “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes,” “Both Sides Now” and “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

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