Harrigan (song)

"Harrigan" is a song written by George M. Cohan for the 1907 Broadway musical Fifty Miles From Boston. It celebrates, and to some extent mocks, his own Irish heritage. It is also an affectionate homage to Edward Harrigan, a previous great Irish American contributor to American musical theater.

The song was performed by James Cagney and Joan Leslie in the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, a biopic of Cohan's life. In that film it was portrayed as an early work of Cohan's that he was shopping around. In real life, by 1907 he had already scored some major Broadway hits and had little need to try to sell individual songs to producers.

Contemporary Irish-American singer Billy Murray made a popular recording of the song. In his version, the answer "Harrigan!" to each question is shouted by a background group.

The song was used decades later for a 1960-1961 ABC television series, Harrigan and Son, about a father-and-son law firm. Its lead players, Pat O'Brien and Roger Perry, would sing the song, silhouetted behind the closing credits of the show.

In his New York gubernatorial campaigns in 1954 and 1958, as well as his bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1956, Averell Harriman used a variation of the song, which sang of "H, A, double-R, I, M, A, N". In 1960, John F. Kennedy's campaign released a recording of Frank Sinatra singing a version of "High Hopes" that included lyrics written specifically for "K, E, double-N, E, D and Y".

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