Harold Arlen(1905-1986)

Arlen always felt that his songs were better-known than he was and, on one notable occasion, set out to prove it. When riding in a cab in New York, he heard the cabbie whistling a few bars of "Stormy Weather." Hearing this, Arlen offered to bet the cabbie double or nothing on the fare that he couldn't name the person who wrote the song, and gave the driver three guesses. When all the guesses proved incorrect, Arlen said, "I wrote it. I'm Harold Arlen." Totally astonished, the cabbie looked back at his customer and said, "WHO?"

In his lyric-writing, Ira [Gershwin] is a plodder - and I don't mean that disrespectfully. I mean it in the best sense. He digs and digs and digs. He edits. He goes over and over his work to change maybe only a line or just a word. ..Ira hates writing ballads. If I want to get him, all I have to say is, 'Ira, we have a film to do and there are six ballads in it'.