Big Band Swing: Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?

By: Leslie Mora

            The Great Depression was a time of despair and sorrow for the American people starting in 1929 when the Stock Market crashed. Every person suffered the effects of the depression even the wealthy who lost everything in the crash.  There was so much economic turmoil and financial struggle that one of the few ways to escape it all was through the music of the era, Big Band Swing.  One exception was the song “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” written by lyricist Yip Harburg and composer Jay Gorney in 1931 where it became one of the best known American songs of the Great Depression. “The arts in the 1930’s at once deflected people from their problems and gave them vicarious experiences, an alternate, world, that could help them bare up.”(Dickstein)  People listened to songs like “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” “not so much to document the Depression but to experience it, to understand the feelings and touch the human tragedy, full of shock, hope, pain, and plaintive longing.”(Dickstein)

            One of the ways this song’s popularity spread through the nation was its presentation in a musical production known as the New Americana. Big Band Swing was present everywhere from out in the streets, in bars and restaurants, to Broadway shows. “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime was sang by various artists, however, it became best known through recordings by Bing Crosby. “The statistics on Bing Crosby’s career are dazzling and extremely revealing regarding his success and influence on the many millions whose lives he affected” (Prigozy). His style of singing was something different that caught the attention of the public eye and the way he sang this song that talks about how the men who built the nation, railroads, towers, and served their country in the war are left behind, abandoned, waiting in bread lines asking for a spare dime truly captures and portrays the dark spirit of the great depression.

Dickstein, Morris. "Preface." Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression. New York: W.W. Norton, 2009. xix. Print.

Prigozy, Ruth. Going My Way: Bing Crosby and American Culture. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2007. Xii. Print.