Johnny Mercer

• Born: November 18, 1909
• Birthplace: Savannah, Georgia
• Died: June 25, 1976
• Place of death: Bel-Air, California

American musical-theater lyricist

A major contributor to the golden age of American popular song, Mercer in his lyrics and melodies combined a sense of nostalgia for lost romances and personal heartbreak with a mastery of vernacular speech and jazz rhythms.

The Life

John Herndon Mercer (MUR-sur) was born in Savannah, Georgia, and in some sense he never left his Southern home and boyhood roots. His father was a wealthy real estate salesman whose first wife had died during the early 1900’s. George Mercer then married Lillian Ciucevich, and their first child was Johnny Mercer. He attended local schools and then completed his education at Woodberry Forest, a boys’ school in Virginia from which he graduated in 1927. Financial reverses in his father’s real-estate business ruled out college for young Mercer. (When he became a wealthy songwriter, Mercer paid off all his father’s debts.) Intent on becoming an actor, Mercer left for New York City in 1927. His career on the stage went nowhere, but he displayed a talent for songwriting. In 1930 his song “Out of Breath” was featured in the Garrick Gaieties. He later recalled that the experience sent him on his way to Tin Pan Alley, the area of New York where songwriters and music publishers congregated. He married Ginger Meltzer on June 8, 1931, and they adopted two children.

Mercer’s career took off during the 1930’s. He was the lyricist on such hits as “Lazy Bones” (written with Hoagy Carmichael), “I’m an Old Cowhand,” and “Jeepers Creepers.” His appearances on radio with big band leader Benny Goodman and singer Bing Crosby revealed that he had a winning style of singing all his own. In the 1940’s Mercer collaborated with Harold Arlen on such standards as “That Old Black Magic” and “One for My Baby.” With Mercer’s satirical lyrics, “Hooray for Hollywood” has become an unofficial anthem for the film community. Mercer was a success in writing song hits for the movies, but he had not yet composed the Broadway musical that would put him in the league of his contemporaries Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin.

As the era of the big bands waned in the late 1940’s and rock and roll appeared on the musical scene, Mercer’s career stalled. Success on Broadway still eluded him until Li’l Abner in 1956, but even that long-running triumph was not the artistic success he had sought. He then had a series of flops that included Saratoga and Foxy but enjoyed a movie hit with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, for which he wrote the words and music in 1954. Throughout the 1950’s, however, a despondent Mercer indicated that the popular interest in his kind of songs was fading. He wavered between drinking bouts when he would embarrass himself and other occasions when he was generous to aspiring songwriters and musicians.

During the early 1960’s his fortunes revived when songs he wrote with Henry Mancini won him two Academy Awards: “Moon River” and “The Days of Wine and Roses.” Both lyrics caught the sense of nostalgia and youth escaping that was so much a part of Mercer’s style. He struggled with alcoholism and depression all of his life, and his own pervasive sadness and melancholy are apparent in many of his best lyrics. Mercer continued to write until his death from a brain tumor in 1976. His ashes were buried in the Bonaventure Cemetery in his native Savannah.

The Music

From the early 1930’s to the mid-1960’s Mercer contributed a body of lyrics that enhanced the work of such important songwriters as Harold Arlen, Jerome Kern, Henry Mancini, Harry Warren, and Richard Whiting. Those discussed here are only a sampling of his rich contributions to the American songbook.

“Laura.”Among his most heartfelt songs is “Laura,” featured in the 1944 movie of the same name, with its evocation of a lost love glimpsed on a passing train or through the clouds of a misty night. In “Skylark” Mercer wrote about the birds he had known in his native Georgia, and his lyrics speak about his attachment to these creatures. This is one of his loveliest songs, with references to blossom-covered lanes, lonely flights, and music in the night.

Jazz Rhythms. While a longing for the past was at the heart of Mercer’s approach to songs and lyrics, he was also adept at infusing jazz rhythms into his work. Such songs as “Goody Goody,” “Too Marvelous for Words,” and “Jeepers Creepers” have a rhythmic pulse that made them the favorites of such singers as Frank Sinatra, Mel Tormé, and Dick Haymes. Many of Mercer’s phrases passed into everyday language, such as “accentuate the positive” and “come rain or come shine.” French Songs. Mercer enjoyed some of his greatest successes when he put English lyrics to the songs of French composers. His most notable work in this area includes “Autumn Leaves,” “The Summer Wind,” and, perhaps the most poignant of all, “When the World Was Young.”

Musical Legacy

Mercer’s songs are still popular more than three decades after his death, and he is regarded as one of the giants of the heyday of American popular song. His lyrics embody the rhythms and speech patterns of mid-twentieth century life in the United States while speaking to emotions of love, longing, and regret that are timeless in their resonance. Blues-tinged, influenced by the landscapes of the South, and subtle in their use of language, Mercer’s songs and lyrics are as powerful and engaging today as they were when first written.

Principal Works

musical theater (lyrics): Garrick Gaieties, 1930 (revue); Americana, 1932 (music by Harold Arlen; lyrics by Edgar “Yip” Harburg and Johnny Mercer); Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939, 1939 (revue; libretto by Lew Leslie); Walk with Music, 1940 (music by Hoagy Carmichael; libretto by Guy Bolton, Parke Levy, and Alan Lipscott); Saint Louis Woman, 1946 (music by Arlen; lyrics by Countée Cullen and Mercer; libretto by Arna Bontemps); Texas L’il Darlin’, 1949 (music by Robert Emmett Dolan; libretto by John Whedon and Sam Moore); Top Banana, 1951 (music by Mercer; libretto by Hy Kraft); Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, 1954 (music by Gene de Paul; libretto by Lawrence Kasha and David Landay); L’il Abner, 1956 (music by de Paul; libretto by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank); Saratoga, 1959 (music by Arlen; libretto by Morton Da Costa); Foxy, 1964 (music by Dolan; libretto by Ian McLellan Hunter and Ring Lardner, Jr.); The Good Companions, 1974 (music by André Previn; based on J. B. Priestley’s novel).

Bibliography

Bach, Bob, and Ginger Mercer. Johnny Mercer: The Life, Times, and Song Lyrics of Our Huckleberry Friend. Secaucus, N.J.: Lyle Stuart, 1982. Mercer’s lyrics compiled by his wife and a close friend.

Furia, Philip. Skylark: The Life and Times of Johnny Mercer. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003. A biography by one of the leading scholars on American songwriters.

Lees, Gene. Portrait of Johnny: The Life of John Herndon Mercer. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004. A personal friend of Mercer and fellow songwriter, Lees’s insights are invaluable.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Singers and the Song II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Contains an essay on Mercer that has proved influential for students of his career.

Wilk, Max. They’re Playing Our Song: The Truth Behind the Words and Music of Three Generations. Mount Kisco, N.Y.: Moyer Bell, 1991. Contains an interview with Mercer from the early 1970’s that gives a good sense of the man and his craft.