Any list of great but little-known pop lyricists would have to include Jack Yellen:

"Are You from Dixie?", "Alabama Jubilee", "Who Cares", "Lovin' Sam", "I Wonder What's Become of Sally", "Crazy Words, Crazy Tune", "Ain't She Sweet?", "Happy Days Are Here Again" (celebrating the end of prohibition!), and "My Yiddische Mama", to name only a few.

"Crazy Words, Crazy Tune" is a HOOT. Ashley Hutchings does a truncated version of it to open one of his "Guv'nor" CD's, but the best recorded versions, both available for listening online, are by Irving Aronson and His Commanders and by Vaughn DeLeath.

Mr. Yellin's collaborators included Milton Ager (frequently), Abe Olman, Harold Arlen, Sammy Fain, Ray Henderson, Joe Meyer, Lew Pollack and Samuel Pokrass.

He wrote lots of special material for Sophie Tucker.

His filmography includes score credits for Road Show, The King of Jazz, George White's Scandals (1934, 1935), Happy Landing, King of Burlesque, and the Shirley Temple films Captain January and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

Mr. Yellen was born in Poland in 1892 and died in New York in 1991. Quite a run!