This post is by Callum Blackmore, a GSAS student and intern in the RBML’s Graduate Student Internship in Primary Sources.
Two recently processed collections at the Rare Book and Manuscript Library provide insights into the life and work of Judy Garland. But while one paints the star in a largely negative light, the other offers a rare look into her musical renaissance.
Part II: Judy and Lorna
For all that Garland self-deprecated over her own lack of musical training,[1] Lindsey certainly considered his arrangements to be an extension of Garland’s “brilliant” musical imagination.[2] He once said of his work with Garland: “You’re with someone who can stand out on the stage alone with you and an orchestra, and, really, you’re important but nothing like what she’s doing out there: she can hold an audience for two hours by herself.”[3]
The Mort Lindsey scores and papers contain many of his arrangements for Judy Garland, with the music of the short-lived Judy Garland Show especially well represented. (My particular favorite is a duet for Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand in which the melodies for Harold Arlen’s “Get Happy” and Milton Ager’s “Happy Days Are Here Again” are arranged in a quodlibet.[4]) But I would like to examine just one melody, in order to chart – in microcosm – the ways in which Garland used musical arrangement to forge a new, more personal artistic identity in the early 1960s. The melody in question goes by many names, appearing throughout the collection in various guises. It was originally written by Mort Lindsey as the theme tune for The Judy Garland Show; however, it was later given lyrics by Johnny Mercer, and sung on a 1964 episode of The Judy Garland Show as a tribute to her younger daughter, Lorna Luft. After that, the song became known as “Lorna,” its shifting meanings congealing in an expression of motherly love.
In a lengthy monologue before this performance, Garland explained that she wanted to do a series of segments in which she would serenade her children with songs that featured their names. She sang “Liza” from George Gershwin’s Show Girl for her oldest daughter, Liza Minnelli, on the show’s third episode in 1963, and then “Happiness is Just a Thing Called Joe” from Harold Arlen’s Cabin in the Sky for her son, Joey Luft. “But I have another child,” Garland mused to the studio audience, lounging cross-legged on the sound stage, “and she’s pretty angry, she really is.”[5]
“Nobody ever wrote a song about Lorna! And we looked everywhere. We found songs like ‘Linda’ and ‘Lily’ and ‘Lola’ and ‘Lorraine’ and ‘Lulu’ and, of course, ‘Cincinnati Lou,’ and even ‘Lydia the Tattooed Lady.’ But we couldn’t find a ‘Lorna,’ we just couldn’t! But then we have a lovely theme that was written on our show by Mr. Mort Lindsey, our musical conductor. Mort, would you, darling, play just a bar or so of your song?”[6]
At this point Garland gestured to Lindsey, who complied with the opening phrase of his theme tune for The Judy Garland Show. Garland then explained that this was “such a pretty melody” that she asked Mercer to “help them out” with some lyrics, thereby making Lorna a “very happy little girl.”[7]
The song itself is heartbreakingly beautiful but musically unconventional.[8] The first two lines of the melody are comprised largely of rising intervallic leaps. The melody surges upward again and again, pushing Garland’s voice into an increasingly higher register, almost traversing her entire vocal range in just eight measures. Notably, each upward leap “lands” on a dissonance – a note that clashes with the chord that underpins it – creating thrilling (and unexpected) moments of melodic tension. The opening interval (on the word “Lorna”) is a fifth, meaning that the voice must leap from the first note to the note five notes above it: the melody leaps from a D (which is part of the opening G major chord) to an A (which is not), resulting in a slight discord between the vocal line and the accompaniment. This happens again in the third bar: between the syllables “-lieve” and “what,” there is a seventh leap, with the voice landing, again, on a note that clashes with the underlying harmony. It is a powerful expressive mechanism: the melody not only rises in pitch but also in intensity, always arriving at notes which complicate the harmonic infrastructure. There is a certain aching vulnerability in these melodic leaps – captured so exquisitely in Garland’s performance. The vocal line is almost deliberately awkward in its construction: its ragged contours and broad sweep are not merely physically straining, but also harmonically exposed, putting extra onus on Garland’s vocal prowess. . This euphoric effect is aided by the melody’s unusual harmonic structure: although the tune begins in the key of G, it ends in the key of B flat. In other words, the melody itself contains an inbuilt modulation, starting in one key before leading the listener through to another.[9] Indeed, the tune is rather harmonically wayward, tonicizing the keys of E flat and A flat, and even returning to G – all on its way to the final B flat cadence. Put simply, while most songs start in one key and end in the same key, “Lorna” presents a progression from one key to another. It is a harmonic journey, this large-scale tonal shift gradually ratcheting up the song’s emotional intensity. And you can sense this emotional shift in Garland’s rendition: sitting at the edge of the stage, clutching her eleven-year-old daughter’s hand, Garland gives one of the most ravishing performances of her career, her voice plangent but warm, steadfast but gentle.
Garland, by all accounts, was a warm, loving mother – despite her struggles with substance use.[10] But her relationship with her children was frequently threatened by outside forces, especially during the early 1960s, when her marriage to Sid Luft was publicly breaking down.[11] Yet, in The Judy Garland Show, the singer paid rapturous tribute to her children, who not only made guest appearances on the series, but also came to define its musical identity. The tune known as “Lorna” gradually emerged on the show as a kind of leitmotif for parenthood, and particularly as a symbol of Garland’s love for her daughters. Notably, the tune made a fleeting appearance when Garland sang Gershwin’s “Liza” for Liza Minnelli in 1963.[12] As Garland belts the final note, the horns (joined by the violins and trumpets) thunder out the opening measures of the “Lorna” theme as the teenaged Minnelli rushes to the stage to kiss her mother. It is a touching moment, made all the more moving by the sudden, unexpected appearance of this musical motif, which rushes forth with the same enthusiasm as Minnelli embraces Garland. It was only natural, then, that this tune should later become associated with Lorna Luft: Lindsey had already used it to give an affectionate musical voice to a mother-daughter relationship so often used as gossipy fodder for a prying media.
***
Lindsey reimagined the “Lorna” melody with the same vivacity, flexibility, and originality with which Garland reinvented her own career. Watching episodes of The Judy Garland Show back-to-back, one almost sees this continually returning, ever-changing melody as a metaphor for Garland’s own artistic renaissance. Garland’s flair for the “comeback” – and the sheer creative effort and imagination undergirding it – find perfect expression in Lindsey’s ever-changing treatment of this theme.
One of my favorite cues – simply labeled “Judy’s Theme” – splits up the “Lorna” theme into smaller segments and passes them between different sections of the ensemble in a technique known as Klangfarbenmelodie.[13] The result is a series of interweaving melodic tendrils, made all the more complex by the various countermelodies that wind and twist between these melodic segments. An instrument will find itself playing a countermelody in one measure and a short section of the melody in the next. The effect is dizzying: the listener never knows which part of the orchestra the “Lorna” theme will emerge from next as it ducks and dives between instrumental timbres. Lindsey also varies the number of instruments that play the melody at any given time, veering between grandeur and intimacy: some melodic segments are taken by large groups of musicians (i.e., the strings and woodwinds playing together) and others are taken by soloists (there are gorgeous violin and trombone solos, for example). To this mercurial (essentially contrapuntal) texture, Lindsey adds a number of other colorful musical effects: upward-rushing violin scales to fill the melody’s large leaps; a wordless choir who fade in and out of the texture; a celebratory carillon of bells; and a smattering of soft cymbal rolls.
In two cues (titled “Button No. 2” and “Button No. 5”)[14] the “Lorna” theme appears as a triumphant fanfare, with horns, trombones, trumpets, and saxophones roaring out the melody in richly voiced parallel chords, culminating in a series of ecstatic “rips” in the upper register of the first trumpet.[15] Another fanfare-like cue (titled “Button No. 4”) adds a countermelody in the horns, which surge forth with a rush of rhythmic activity at the end of each phrase.[16] These “buttons” – annotated with the preceding lines “Wrap it up!” and “That’s all folks!” – were clearly written to play Garland out at the end of the show and project a kind of exultant mood. And, in many ways, each taping of The Judy Garland Show was an act of defiance on Garland’s part, not only repudiating the various doctors who told her that she would never perform again, but also the press, who doubted that she would be able to make it through the entire season of a TV show.[17]
Another cue – titled “Song for Judy: Full Lush Version” – gives the “Lorna” theme the full orchestral treatment. With the strings playing portamento over an accompaniment of horns, woodwinds, and harps, the melody sounds positively Wagnerian, its meandering harmonic language taking on a romantic, dreamy quality. Indeed, several of Lindsey’s cues lean into the softer, more tender edges of the melody – whose rapidly rising contour takes on a sentimental sweep when given to an orchestra of sostenuto violins. In the cue titled “Judy’s Theme: Quiet Version,” the “Lorna” melody – played on muted strings – is accompanied by harp arpeggios, punctuated only by solos for the French and English horns.[18] This delicate, silken texture gradually shrinks down to a small ripieno of solo strings, who play the final measures as if it were a string quintet. This understated ending is delightfully at odds with the extravagance of the song’s closing cadence, which constitutes the highest pitches in the melodic contour – reached by way of a slow, expansive chromatic climb. When Garland belts this cadence at the very top of her lungs it has a certain grandeur; but in Lindsey’s “quiet” version, the melody simply fades away into a silvery cloud of solo strings.
These cues contrast starkly with Lindsey’s station break music, which takes the “Lorna” theme and gives it a frenetic, propulsive energy.[19] The tune becomes an uptempo hop, with a double-time oom-pah accompaniment, and a rapidly undulating violin countermelody, churning away relentlessly as advertisements for Betty Crocker, Crest toothpaste, or flash across the screen. Bursts of rhythmic activity for the trumpets and xylophone project a roistering energy in this high-octane arrangement, designed to hold the viewer’s attention through the sponsor advertisements. Another cue (seemingly cut from episode 14, likely from a segment featuring the Mighty Mites football team) turns the “Lorna” theme into a rousing football march, with a Sousa-style brass band, trilling piccolos, and full drumline (the only thing missing is the pom-poms!).[20]
These various versions of the “Lorna” theme – all in the RBML’s Mort Lindsey scores and papers – offer a kaleidoscopic portrait of Garland’s onstage persona. This same tune functioned variously as a torch song about motherhood, a triumphant fanfare, a romantic outpouring, an intimate aside, and an enthusiastic romp. With the help of Lindsey’s arrangements, Garland crafted a vibrant public image in the 1960s – one that, arguably, has endured much longer than the once-popular image of the star as a reckless drunk. Although Lindsey’s cues for The Judy Garland Show were fleeting, ephemeral – designed to fade into the background – they gave the show an aesthetic cohesion, gradually building a portrait of its star as sentimental, affectionate, zany, spirited, and self-assured. The overlapping arenas of television music and musical arrangement have only recently become serious areas of musicological study. But the Mort Lindsey scores and papers suggest that these musical practices might offer new insights into the ways in which mid-century artists fashioned artistic responses to public scrutiny in the dawning media age. After all, what is the art of arrangement other than a kind of musical “comeback,” a means of giving a familiar (perhaps even dowdy) song a new aesthetic guise? And given Judy Garland’s knack for reinvention, it is no wonder that her arrangements should tell us so much about her storied life.
[1] In one episode of The Judy Garland Show, she joked with Barbra Streisand and Ethel Merman about not being able to read music. See: The Judy Garland Show, episode 9, taped 1963 October 4, aired 1963 October 6.
[2] Quoted in Coyne Steven Sanders, “Steve Sanders Remembers Mort Lindsey,” The Judy Garland Experience Blog, 2012 May 8, accessed 2023 June 21, http://thejudygarlandexperience.blogspot.com/2012/05/steve-sanders-remembers-mort-lindsey.html.
[3] Interview with Mort Lindsey, “Mort Lindsey Remembers Judy Garland,” Facebook post, The Judy Garland Experience, 2018 June 21, accessed 2023 August 17.
[4] Manuscript score for an arrangement of “Happy Days Are Here Again/Get Happy,” circa 1963, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 6, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
[5] Transcribed from Judy Garland’s monologue on The Judy Garland Show, episode 20, taped 1964 January 24, aired 1964 February 9.
[6] The Judy Garland Show, episode 20.
[7] The Judy Garland Show, episode 20.
[8] The full arrangement of “Lorna” can be found in the Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library. Lindsey’s lead sheets for the song can be found in box 16, folder 10.
[9] Curiously, Mort Lindsey is inconsistent in the way in which he notates the song’s changing key centers. In some versions, he notates a key change midway through the melody. In other versions, the key change is not notated, with the score written out entirely in either the opening or the closing key. Thus, he seems to have considered both keys as a kind of “tonic.”
[10] Lorna Luft’s autobiography, for example, gives a largely positive portrait of her mother. See: Lorna Luft, Me and My Shadows: A Family Memoir (New York: Pocket Books, 2015).
[11] “Sid Luft Seeks Rehearing in Custody Battle,” New York Times, 1965 August 11, 42.
[12] Mort Lindsey, “Liza,” circa 1963, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
[13] “Judy’s Theme,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library. Klangfarbenmelodie is German for “tone color melody”: it describes a single melody that is split up into different sections, given to different instruments of the orchestra, each melodic segment taking on a different orchestral “color.”
[14] A “button” is a short musical cue that plays at the end of a song, usually to prompt the audience to applaud.
[15] Mort Lindsey, “Button No. 2” and “Button No. 5,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library. A “rip” is a kind of fast slide between notes on the trumpet, created by rapidly changing lip pressure. Both cues are almost exactly the same, but one is in C major and the other is in D flat major.
[16] Mort Lindsey, “Button No. 4,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
[17] For a full history of the show, see: Coyne Steven Sanders, Rainbow’s End: The Judy Garland Show (London: Morrow, 1990).
[18] Mort Lindsey, “Judy’s Theme: Quiet Version,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
[19] Mort Lindsey, “Song for Judy: Station Break,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.
[20] Mort Lindsey, “Song for Judy: March Version,” circa 1963-1964, Mort Lindsey scores and papers, box 2, folder 1, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University Library.