Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

"Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", also sung as "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dime?", is one of the best-known American songs of the Great Depression. Written in 1930 by lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and composer Jay Gorney, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" was part of the 1932 musical revue Americana; the melody is based on a Russian-Jewish lullaby Gorney's mother had sung to him as a child. It was considered by Republicans to be anti-capitalist propaganda, and almost dropped from the show; attempts were made to ban it from the radio. The song became best known, however, through recordings by Bing Crosby and Rudy Vallee. They were released right before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election to the presidency. The Brunswick Crosby recording made on October 25, 1932 with Lennie Hayton and his Orchestra became the best-selling record of its period, and came to be viewed as an anthem to the shattered dreams of the era.

In the song a beggar talks back to the system that stole his job. Gorney said in an interview in 1974 "I didn't want a song to depress people. I wanted to write a song to make people think. It isn't a hand-me-out song of 'give me a dime, I'm starving, I'm bitter', it wasn't that kind of sentimentality". The song asks why the men who built the nation – built the railroads, built the skyscrapers – who fought in the war (World War I), who tilled the earth, who did what their nation asked of them should, now that the work is done and their labor no longer necessary, find themselves abandoned and in bread lines. Asking for an act of charity, the singer requests a Dime (equivalent to $1.43 in 2016).

It refers to "Yankee Doodle Dum", a reference to patriotism, and the evocation of veterans also recalls protests about military bonuses payable only after 21 years, which were a topical issue.

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