Brother, Can You Spare a Dime

“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” is one of the best-known American songs of the Great 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 song tells the story of the universal everyman, whose honest work towards achieving the American dream has been foiled by the economic collapse. Unusual for a Broadway song, it was composed largely in a minor key. The song became best known through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallée that were released in late 1932. The song received positive reviews and was one of the most popular songs of 1932. As one of the few popular songs during the era to discuss the darker aspects of the collapse, it came to be viewed as an anthem of the Great Depression. Unemployed men outside a soup kitchen in Chicago, 1931. The Great Depression in the United States, which started with the 1929 Wall Street crash, had a severe impact on the country. In 1932, 25 percent of American men were unemployed. After his appliance business went bankrupt, Yip Harburg had gone into the music business, working as a lyricist. 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. Gorney recalled that the pair came up with the title “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” after walking in the Central Park where they heard unemployed men asking “Can you spare a dime?” Harburg recalled that he was working on a song for the musical Americana: “We had to have a title… Not to say, my wife is sick, I’ve got six children, the Crash put me out of business, hand me a dime. I hate songs of that kind.”[1] Harburg’s worksheets show that he went through several drafts of the lyrics, which included a satirical version attacking John D. Rockefeller and other tycoons. However, over time Harburg moved towards more concrete imagery, resulting in the final version. Both Gorney and Harburg were socialists. The song is about a man who has sought the American dream, but was foiled by the Great Depression. He is the universal everyman who holds various professions, being a farmer and a construction worker as well as a veteran of World War I: it is intended to embrace all listeners. The man is someone “who kept faith in America, and now America has betrayed him”. After three years of the Depression, the man has lost his job and is reduced to begging for charity. He recognizes the man whose dime (equivalent to $1.82 in 2023) he is asking for. The lyrics refer to “Yankee Doodle Dum”, a reference to patriotism, and the evocation of veterans also recalls the mid-1932 Bonus Army protests about military bonuses payable only after 21 years. Harburg said in an interview: “the man is really saying: I made an investment in this country. Where the hell are my dividends? … [The song] doesn’t reduce him to a beggar. It makes him a dignified human being, asking questions—and a bit 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 have it be diverted by others.
“Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” has an unusual structure for a Broadway song. First, rather than starting in a major key, as most Broadway songs do, it begins in a minor key, which is darker and more appropriate for the Depression. When discussing the prosperous past, the melody jumps an octave on the words “building a dream”, emphasizing the dream, and moves briefly into a major key, evoking energy and optimism. This is placed in baffling and poignant contrast with the reality (“standing in line, / Just waiting for bread”). The song then reverts to the augmented dominant of the minor key in the word “time” in the line “Once I built a railroad, made it run / Made it race against time,” marking the end of prosperous times, and changing to a wistful mood. Each of the three main stanzas end in a direct appeal to the listener, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” The bridge deals with the singer’s experiences as a veteran of the Great 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 anger – repeating the beginning (as is usual for Broadway songs), an octave higher, but with a significant change: the friendly “Brother, can you spare a dime?” is replaced with the more assertive “Buddy, can you spare a dime?” According to Harold Meyerson and Ernest Harburg, “[r]hythmically and melodically it sounds like a Jewish chant.”An article in Tablet magazine suggested that the melody was similar to Hatikvah, the Israeli national anthem.