A Late Style? Arlen, Dory Langdon, and Martin Charnin—and Harold Arlen

Abstract In the 1960s and into the 1970s, as musical styles and audience tastes changed, Arlen pursued fewer opportunities on Broadway and in Hollywood. He was energized by new collaborations with two younger lyricists, Dory Langdon and Martin Charnin. In their songs we can detect traces of a “late” Arlen style, sparser and more experimental. With Charnin, Arlen embarked in 1965–1966 on an ambitious new musical, Softly, set in occupied Japan after World War II. Arlen and Charnin wrote over twenty songs for the show, which was never completed, mainly because of a problematic, ever-changing book by Hugh Wheeler. After this experience, Arlen largely retreated from songwriting, although in 1972 he wrote both music and lyrics for eight songs for a projected television musical with a book by Leonard Melfi, Clippety Clop and Clementine.