Jay Gorney

From Philosopedia

Jay Gorney (12 December 1894 - 14 June 1990)

According to Dan Barker, Foster was one of many major musicians who were freethinkers - he cites information found in a biography by Gorney's wife, Sondra, Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?: The Life of Composer Jay Gorney (Scarecrow Press, 2005):

The composer of “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” was, like the lyricist Yip Harburg, a nonbeliever who ended up being blacklisted for his liberal views. Jay Gorney is the man who discovered Shirley Temple and for whom he wrote her first movie song “Baby, Take a Bow” (in Stand Up and Cheer). He wrote such standards as “You’re My Thrill” and “What Wouldn’t I Do for That Man?” plus hundreds of popular songs for theater, film, and television.

“We were not a religious family,” his widow Sondra Gorney told me in a phone interview. They were not married in a church or synagogue. His memorial was held at the New York Public Shakespeare Theater, not in a religious setting.

The son of Polish-Jewish immigrants who came to the United States escaping religious persecution when he was a child, Jay Gorney became more involved with liberal human causes than with any religious heritage.

Because of his social views, Jay Gorney was subpoenaed to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee on May 6, 1953. To prove his loyalty to America, Jay told the committee that besides helping his father to learn about the Constitution in preparation for citizenship, he had written a song in 1940 called “The Bill of Rights” that was being sung by American schoolchildren. He sang that song to the committee, which includes these words:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,

Or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,

Or abridging the freedom of speech

Or of the press

Or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble

And to petition the Government for a redress of grievances—

That’s the Bill of Rights. That’s the Bill of Rights.

Don’t lose it!

“A surprised committee chairman’s gavel banged loudly,” Sondra writes in her memoir “Congressman Tavenner, a member of the committee, tried to stop Jay’s singing and said, ‘It’s rather unusual for a person to sing a song.’

“ ’Well,’ said Jay, ‘you have allowed other singers in this committee from time to time. They have sung long songs - trained pigeons, I call them.’ "

Rather than answer direct questions, Gorney took the Fifth Amendment. “It kept him out of prison but lost him his thriving career for the rest of his life,” Sondra laments.

Jay’s entire life was dedicated to helping his fellow man and woman, as an artist and as a concerned human being,” Sondra said. Music, for Gorney, was more than entertainment - it was a way to make this world a better place.