Unknown author · Public domain

Ira Gershwin wrote the lyrics behind some of the twentieth century's most enduring American songs — "I Got Rhythm," "Embraceable You," "Someone to Watch Over Me" — in a decades-long partnership with his younger brother George that produced more than a dozen Broadway shows and the opera Porgy and Bess. When George died suddenly in 1937, Ira kept working, pairing his lyrics with composers including Kurt Weill, Jerome Kern, and Harold Arlen. His 1959 book Lyrics on Several Occasions remains a standard reference on the craft of songwriting from the golden age of American popular song.