Brother Can You Spare a Dime

Building a Dream
Men who went to war, who took on the work of constructing the country afterwards, left on the scrapheap when speculators wrecked the economy.

This is another song that has been in my mind for many years, particularly these lines:

Half a million boots went marching through hell
And I was the kid with the drum,
Hey don’t you remember, they called me Al?
It was Al all the time…

So, like Keep the Home Fires Burning, this was a song I sought out and learned when I came back to playing and singing in 2012. It is a good companion to Home Fires as one takes us into the war and the other takes us out of it into the depression which helped to foster the rise of fascism and the Second World War. In Folk music clubs I sometimes sing them as a short medley.

The song was written by Yip Harburg and Jay Gorney in the 1930s, there is a good account of its history in Wikipedia. Originally there were attempts to ban the song in the USA but when Roosevelt came to power it became a big hit and the Bing Crosby version was the best-selling record of the period.

As well as contemporary photographs, I’ve been able to use some very appropriate artworks to illustrate the period, especially the modernist dreams of constructing a new society and the dignity of labour, embodied in some wonderful murals such as those at  Allen Hall in Louisiana State University

I’ve also included a photograph of one of my heroes, Raymond Leowy, standing on one of the iconic streamlined steam locomotives that helped to make his reputation as America’s first great industrial designer and clearly one of the people who built that railroad. In his sharp suit, on that huge, powerful and quintessentially modern machine he sums up the optimism that contrasts so sharply with the defeats of the Great Depression. (To be accurate that photo was taken in 1938 at the end of the depression but it’s such a statement of  industrial optimism that I felt it fitted perfectly with the theme of building a dream)

The song draws an even sharper contrast than Home Fires between the optimism of young men going off to war and the reality of the trenches.

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle Dum
Half a million boots went slogging through hell
And I was the kid with the drum

Between the images of the depression I’ve slipped in a few of Hitler, Mussolini and Oswald Mosley to remind us that Fascism thrives in times of hardship and uncertainty, something that seems quite relevant today.

Here are the full words:

They used to tell me I was building a dream
And so I followed the mob
When there was earth to plough or guns to bear
I was always there, right on the job

They used to tell me I was building a dream
With peace and glory ahead
So why am I, just standing in line
Waiting for bread?

Once I built a railroad, made it run
Used to race against time
Once I built a railroad, now it’s done
Brother can you spare a dime?

Once I built a tower to the sun
Bricks and rivets and lime
Once I built a tower, now it’s done
Brother can you spare a dime?

Once in khaki suits, gee we looked swell
Full of that Yankee Doodle Dum
Half a million boots went slogging through hell
And I was the kid with the drum

Hey don’t you remember, they called me Al?
It was Al all the time,
Don’t you remember, I was your pal?
Brother can you spare a dime?

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