maybe you can learn to cheer me

Lyricist                          

Selected Works:

Songs:

Over the Rainbow
Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? with composer Jay Gorney in 1932
Cabin in the Sky with Harold Arlen, 1943
Bloomer Girl with Harold Arlen, 1944
April in Paris
It's Only a Paper Moon
Lydia the Tattooed Lady
How Are Things in Glocca Morra?
Old Devil Moon
Then I'll Be Tired of You
When the Idle Poor Become the Idle Rich
Down with Love

Broadway Revues:

Earl Carroll's Sketchbook of 1929 - 1929 - co-composer and co-lyricist with Jay Gorney
Garrick Gaieties - 1930 - contributing lyricist
Earl Carroll's Vanities of 1930 - contributing songwriter
The Vanderbilt Revue - 1930 - contributing lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1931 - featured lyricist for Mailu
Shoot the Works - 1931 - contributing composer and lyricist
Ballyhoo of 1932 - lyricist
Americana - 1932 - lyricist. The Revue include Brother Can You Spare a Dime?
Walk a Little Faster - 1932 - lyricist
Ziegfeld Follies of 1934 - primary lyricist - for about half of the numbers.
Life Begins at 8:40 - 1934 - co-lyricist with Ira Gershwin
The Show is On - 1936 - featured lyricist
Blue Holiday - 1945 - all-Black cast - contributing composer and lyricist
At Home With Ethel Waters - 1953 - featured lyricist for Happiness is Jes' a Thing Called Joe
Post-retirement or posthumous credits:
A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine - 1980 - featured lyricist for Over the Rainbow
Jerome Kern Goes to Hollywood - 1986 - featured lyricist to music by Jerome Kern
Mostly Sondheim - 2002 - featured lyricist

Broadway Musicals:

Hooray For What! - 1937 - lyricist and originator
Hold on to Your Hats - 1940 - lyricist
Bloomer Girl - 1944 - lyricist, originator and director for musical numbers
Finian's Rainbow - 1947 - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Revived in 1955, 1960
Flahooley - 1951 - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter
Jamaica - 1957 - lyricist, originator and co-bookwriter - Tony Nomination for Best Musical
The Happiest Girl in the World - 1961 - originator and lyricist to music by Jacques Offenbach and originator of the story, based on Lysistrata by Aristophanes
Darling of the Day - 1968 - lyricist

Films:

Moonlight and Pretzels - 1933
The Singing Kid - 1936
Golddiggers of 1937 - 1936
The Wizard of Oz - 1939
At the Circus - 1939
Babes on Broadway - 1941
Ship Ahoy - 1942
Cabin in the Sky - 1943 Yarburg's song Aint It The Truth expressing religious skepticism was removed.
Can't Help Singing - 1944
Gay Purr-ee - 1962
Finian's Rainbow

Books By Harburg:

Rhymes for the Irreverent - 1965
At This Point in Rhyme - 1976                          

Mother Mary Ricing
Father Lewis Hochberg