Ever Lend Us a Dime Again

1932 pop music song

Song

"Brother, Tin can You Spare a Dime?"
Sheet music cover for Americana
Vocal
Composer(s)	Jay Gorney
Lyricist(s)	Yip Harburg

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" is one of the all-time-known American songs of the Cracking Depression. Written by lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Jay Gorney, it was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana; the melody is based on a Russian-Jewish lullaby. The vocal tells the story of the universal everyman, whose honest piece of work towards achieving the American dream has been foiled by the economic collapse. Unusually for a Broadway song, it was composed largely in a pocket-sized cardinal, as befits the subject matter. The vocal became best known through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée that was released in late 1932. The song received positive reviews and was ane of the nigh popular songs of 1932. Equally ane of the few popular songs during the era to discuss the darker aspects of the collapse, information technology came to be viewed equally an anthem of the Peachy Depression.

Background [edit]

Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen in Chicago, 1931.

The Neat Depression in the United states, which started with the 1929 Wall Street crash, had a severe impact on the land. In 1932, 25 pct of American men were unemployed.^{[1] [2]}

After his appliance business went bankrupt, Yip Harburg had gone into the music business concern, working as a lyricist.^[3] The melody derives from a Jewish lullaby that the composer Jay Gorney, who emigrated to the United States in 1906, heard in his native Russia. Initially, it had other lyrics which discussed a romantic breakup.^{[i] [iii] [iv]} Gorney recalled that the pair came up with the title "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" later on walking in the Primal Park where they heard unemployed men asking "Tin can yous spare a dime?"^[5] Harburg recalled that he was working on a vocal for the musical Americana: "We had to accept a title... Not to say, my wife is sick, I've got six children, the Crash put me out of concern, hand me a dime. I detest songs of that kind."^[ane] Harburg'due south worksheets show that he went through several drafts of the lyrics, which included a satirical version attacking John D. Rockefeller and other tycoons. Nevertheless, over time Harburg moved towards more concrete imagery, resulting in the concluding version.^[1] Both Gorney and Harburg were socialists.^[6]

Composition and lyrical estimation [edit]

The vocal is about a homo who has sought the American dream, merely was foiled by the Great Low. He is the universal everyman who holds various professions, beingness a farmer and a construction worker besides as a veteran of Earth State of war I: it is intended to embrace all listeners.^{[one] [4]} The man is someone "who kept organized religion in America, and now America has betrayed him". After 3 years of the Depression, the man has lost his chore and is reduced to begging for charity. He recognizes the man whose dime (equivalent to $one.55 in 2020) he is asking for.^{[7] [eight]} The lyrics refer to "Yankee Doodle Dum", a reference to patriotism, and the evocation of veterans also recalls the mid-1932 Bonus Army protests almost armed forces bonuses payable only later 21 years.^{[ix] [10]} Harburg said in an interview: "the man is really saying: I made an investment in this land. Where the hell are my dividends? ... [The song] doesn't reduce him to a beggar. It makes him a dignified human existence, asking questions—and a flake outraged, too, as he should be."^[1] This reflects the socialist or Marxist idea that workers deserve to enjoy the fruits of their labor, rather than take it exist diverted by others.^{[one] [6]}

"Brother, Can Yous Spare a Dime?" has an unusual construction for a Broadway song. Outset, rather than starting in a major central, every bit most Broadway songs do, it begins in a pocket-size primal, which is darker and more appropriate for the Depression. When discussing the prosperous past, the melody jumps an octave on the words "edifice a dream", emphasizing the dream, and moves briefly into a major fundamental, evoking free energy and optimism. This is placed in baffling and poignant contrast with the reality ("continuing in line, / Just waiting for bread"). The song and then reverts to the augmented dominant of the minor primal in the give-and-take "time" in the line "In one case I built a railroad, fabricated it run / Made it race confronting time," marking the finish of prosperous times, and changing to a contemplative mood. Each of the 3 main stanzas end in a straight entreatment to the listener, "Brother, Tin You Spare a Dime?" The bridge deals with the singer's experiences as a veteran of the Great State of war, falling from patriotism "looked swell" to the discordant harmonies of "slogging through hell". The song then ends, not on a note of resignation, but with acrimony – repeating the outset (as is usual for Broadway songs), an octave higher, but with a significant change: the friendly "Brother, tin you spare a dime?" is replaced with the more than assertive "Buddy, can yous spare a dime?"^{[1] [6]} According to Harold Meyerson and Ernest Harburg, "[r]hythmically and melodically information technology sounds like a Jewish dirge."^[ane] An article in Tablet magazine suggested that the melody was similar to Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem.^[11]

Musical and encompass versions [edit]

The song was commencement performed by the vaudeville singer King Weber as part of the musical Americana,^{[3] [5]} which ran from Oct to Dec 1932 and was not a success. Three weeks later Americana opened, the vocal was covered past crooner Bing Crosby for Brunswick Records; information technology was as well covered by Rudy Vallee shortly thereafter for Columbia Records. Unusually, Vallee's version includes a spoken introduction, in which the narrator states that the song is "a scrap out of grapheme" for him. The song became popular through these versions, which were both oft aired on the radio and competed for listeners. Past the finish of the year, Al Jolson had also covered the vocal on his popular show for NBC.^[iii] The song has been covered past at least 52 artists in the United States^[11] including Judy Collins and Tom Waits.^[12]

In the Uk, it was recorded by Harry Roy and his Orchestra (From the Cafe Anglais, London) in 1933 and issued past Parlophone, with vocals past Pecker Currie, featuring non-vocal speech by Currie and Roy. A version past Lew Stone and his Band (again at the Cafe Anglais) was recorded the same twelvemonth for a "Lew Rock Favourites" medley, with vocals past Al Bowlly, and released by Decca.^[13] In 1948, a revival of the song by British vocalist Steve Conway was released on Columbia.^[xiv]

During the 1970s stagflation and in low-cal of the Watergate scandal, Harburg wrote a parody version for The New York Times:^{[15] [16]}

One time we had a Roosevelt
Praise the Lord!
Life had meaning and hope.
At present we're stuck with Nixon, Agnew, Ford,
Brother, can yous spare a rope?

Reception and legacy [edit]

At the time, reviews of musicals rarely devoted much space to the songs' lyrics and melody. That was not truthful of the reviews of Americana.^[17] In The New York Times, Brooks Atkinson wrote that "Brother, Tin You Spare a Dime?" was "plaintive and thundering" and "the first vocal of the year that can exist sung... Mr. Gorney has expressed the spirit of these times with more heart-breaking anguish than whatsoever of the prose bards of the day."^{[17] [18]} Gilbert Gabriel in New York American wrote: "Gorney and Harburg have written something so stirring that information technology volition run away with the whole show".^[17] Theater Arts Monthly 'due south review stated that the song "deflates the rolling bombast of our political nightmare with greater effect than all the rest of Mr. McEvoy's satirical skits put together"; Variety said that "Brother" was the only part of the show worth praising.^[17] Harburg later wrote that the vocal earned him several 1000 dollars and helped him get started in the music business.^[xix] Business leaders tried to accept it banned from the radio, viewing the vocal as "a dangerous assail on the American economic organization". They were unsuccessful, due to the song'south popularity.^{[2] [12]} William Zinsser writes that "[t]he vocal then lacerated the national conscience that radio stations banned it" for being "sympathetic to the unemployed".^[xx]

Few thematic Depression songs were popular, considering Americans did not want music which reminded them of the economic state of affairs, merely "Brother, Tin You Spare a Dime?" was "the exception that proved the rule".^[3] Unlike other popular songs of the same era which tended to be upbeat, with titles such as "Happy Days Are Here Over again" (1929), "On the Sunny Side of the Street" (1930), and "Life Is Just a Bowl of Cherries" (1931), "Blood brother" "put words and music to what many Americans were feeling—fear, grief, even acrimony".^{[two] [12]} The song was one of the first musical works to take the Depression seriously.^[1] Information technology was 1 of the most pop twenty songs of 1932 in the United States.^[3] Philip Furia and Michael Lasser wrote that the song "embodied the Low for millions of Americans... No other popular song defenseless the spirit of its time with such urgency."^[vii] In 2007, Clyde Haberman wrote that the vocal "endures as an anthem for the downtrodden and the forgotten".^[12] In 2011, Zinsser wrote that "Brother" "still hovers in the national memory; I can hear its ghostly echo in the chants of the Occupy Wall Street marchers".^[xx] In a 2008 retrospective, NPR described it as "the anthem of the Great Depression".^[vi]

According to Meyerson and Ernest Harburg, the challenge that Yip Harburg faced in crafting the lyrics was "much similar the challenge confronting the street-corner panhandler: to establish the character's individuality and the moral and political basis for his merits". They write that the latter accomplished this by gradually edifice intimacy with the listener, starting in third person and moving into first, second, and then both first and 2nd combined ("I'm your pal"). The internal rhymes help the listener think that the vocalizer was working towards a dream, which is at present shattered. They as well write that the song is a "masterpiece of economy" in building towards a "climactic exclamation of commonality and interdependency" in "I'm your pal". "The music and lyrics together make u.s. experience the serenity agony of the singer."^[1]

Pianist Rob Kapilow remarked that the title is "the entire history of the Low in a unmarried phrase" and the listener ends up "feeling the time-immemorial complaint that the working human doesn't get the rewards". He says that Harburg and Gorney were brave to express this bulletin in 1932 "when no one was saying this out loud".^[half-dozen] Furia and Lasser write that the song is unusual in relying on a strong narrative instead of emotion or imagery.^[7] Thomas Due south. Hischak wrote that the song was "1 of the first theatre songs to have a stiff sociological message, and it remains one of the most powerful of the genre".^[21] The song was the well-nigh prominent cultural representation of the Bonus Army.^[nine]

References [edit]

1. ^ ^{a b c d due east f g h i j k} Meyerson, Harold; Harburg, Ernest (1995). Who Put the Rainbow in the Sorcerer of Oz?: Yip Harburg, Lyricist. Academy of Michigan Press. pp. 46–52. ISBN978-0-472-08312-ane.
2. ^ ^{a b c} McCollum, Sean (September 17, 2019). "Brother Tin Y'all Spare a Dime? The story behind the song". The Kennedy Middle. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
3. ^ ^{a b c d eastward f} Young, William H.; Young, Nancy K. (2007). "Brother, Tin can Yous Spare a Dime?". The Great Depression in America: A Cultural Encyclopedia. Greenwood Publishing Group. pp. 72–74. ISBN978-0-313-33522-8.
4. ^ ^{a b} Kazin, Michael (2011). American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 176. ISBN978-0-307-26628-6.
5. ^ ^{a b} Gorney, Sondra (2005). Blood brother, Can You Spare a Dime?: The Life of Composer Jay Gorney. Scarecrow Press. pp. 12–13. ISBN978-0-8108-5655-iv.
6. ^ ^{a b c d due east} Kapilow, Rob (November xv, 2008). "A Depression-Era Anthem For Our Times". NPR. Retrieved 21 May 2020.
7. ^ ^{a b c} Furia, Philip; Lasser, Michael (2006). "Blood brother, Can Y'all Spare a Dime?". America'southward Songs: The Stories Backside the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley. Routledge. pp. 72, 99–100. ISBN978-1-135-47192-7.
8. ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Coin? A Historical Price Index for Utilise every bit a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Existent Coin? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Coin Values in the Economic system of the Us (PDF). American Antique Club. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Banking company of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Alphabetize (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved January i, 2020.
9. ^ ^{a b} Barber, Lucy Thou. (2004). Marching on Washington: The Forging of an American Political Tradition. Academy of California Press. pp. 104–105. ISBN978-0-520-93120-half dozen.
10. ^ Zinn, Howard (2009). The Twentieth Century: A People'south History. Harper Collins. p. 116. ISBN978-0-06-184346-4.
11. ^ ^{a b} Boehm, Lisa Krissoff (v April 2018). "How a Russian Jewish Lullaby Turned into the Anthem of the Forgotten Men and Women of Our Country". Tablet Magazine . Retrieved 26 May 2020.
12. ^ ^{a b c d} Haberman, Clyde (27 November 2007). "A 1930s Vocal of Americana Still Resonates". The New York Times . Retrieved 26 May 2020.
13. ^ Rust, Brian; Forbes, Sandy (1987). British dance bands on record 1911 to 1945. Harrow: Full general Gramophone Publications. ISBN0-902470-15-ix. OCLC 17951884. {{cite book}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
14. ^ "Record Round-Up". Sunday Pictorial. September xix, 1948. p. eleven.
15. ^ Brahms, Caryl; Sherrin, Ned (1984). Vocal by Song: The Lives and Piece of work of 14 Great Lyric Writers. R. Anderson Publications. p. 140. See rope, dime. ISBN978-0-86360-014-2.
16. ^ Sherrin, Ned (2008). Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations. Oxford Academy Press. p. eight. ISBN978-0-19-923716-6.
17. ^ ^{a b c d} Meyerson & Harburg 1995, p. 54.
18. ^ Atkinson, Brooks (October 6, 1932). "The Play: Design and Dance in an "American Revue" That Represents Modern Gustatory modality in Artistry". The New York Times.
19. ^ Alonso, Harriet Hyman (2013). Yip Harburg: Legendary Lyricist and Human Rights Activist. Wesleyan Academy Press. p. 32. ISBN978-0-8195-7124-3.
20. ^ ^{a b} Zinsser, William (4 November 2011). "Brother, Can You lot Spare a Chore?". The American Scholar . Retrieved 22 May 2020.
21. ^ Hischak, Thomas S. (1995). "Brother, Tin Yous Spare a Dime?". The American Musical Theatre Song Encyclopedia. Greenwood Press. pp. 38–39. ISBN978-0-313-29407-5.

External links [edit]

• Autographed score (1932) published by Paramount-Publix

johnsonlonge1992.blogspot.com

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother,_Can_You_Spare_a_Dime%3F

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