DeSylva penned all of his lyrics for 1920s and '30s Broadway revues and musicals, extensively with Al Jolson ("Avalon", "California Here I Come") and George Gershwin in the '20s ("Somebody Loves Me", "I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise", "Blue Monday Blues") and then with lyricist Lew Brown and composer Ray Henderson in the '30s in a series of musicals ("Button Up Your Overcoat", "The Best Things In Life Are Free", "You're The Cream In My Coffee") before settling into a successful career as film producer first at Fox and then at Paramount.

Arthur Freed's songwriting career was exclusively as a Hollywood staff writer during the 1930s and '40s, mostly with composer Nacio Herb Brown. As the head of the famous M-G-M film musical "Freed Unit" (which got its start with his production of The Wizard of Oz in 1939) he oversaw the creation of 1952's Singin' In The Rain which was filled with the songs he and Brown wrote for M-G-M in the early days of sound film.