Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Introduction
In a Nutshell
In 1932, at the height of the Great Depression and extreme unemployment, the American people on the whole were pretty optimistic.Wait, what? Give us some of what they had for breakfast. Oh, corn mush with milk? Nevermind...
It should seem a little bit off. The same can't be said for the American people in the midst of the far less intense recession of the late 2000s.
A sweet little showtune, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" became the most popular song of the early 1930s, capturing some of the sadness and disillusionment of the times. It also captures the innocence, summing up the mentality of a dispossessed America with a "sharing-is-caring" message that during the late-2000s crisis, would strike a lot of people as downright socialistic.
Was Bing Crosby—the guy who did "White Christmas," and then got it stuck in our heads—a socialist? Hardly.
But was the American outlook back then different from the American outlook during a 21st-century crisis? Most definitely. Read on to find out just how much things have changed in the decades since Bing Crosby's brotherly crooning first graced the radio.
About the Song
| Artist | Bing Crosby | Musician(s) | Bing Crosby (vocals) |
| Album | Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? | ||
| Year | 1932 | ||
| Label | Brunswick Records | ||
| Writer(s) | Jay Gorney and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg | ||
| Producer(s) | |||
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Learn to play: Chords, Sheet Music Buy this song: Amazon iTunes |
Try Listen and Learn (BETA) | ||
Shmoop Connections
"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" can hardly be expected to represent all the diverse perspectives of U.S. residents during the Great Depression. After all, the U.S. was as much a land of new immigrants and Native Americans then as it is now.But because it was far and away the most popular song of the early 1930s, it's definitely a valid source in helping us learn something about how large numbers of people saw the key political issues of the Great Depression.
It might be especially useful in helping us understand what made U.S. citizens stay so darned optimistic in the midst of an economic crisis that didn't really die down until partway through World War II.
On the Charts
The song was a #1 hit in the U.S. in 1932.High sales for Rudy Vallee's version of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" the same year made it the biggest-selling song in the first half of the 1930s.