The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)

"The Gold Diggers' Song (We're in the Money)" is a song from the 1933 Warner Bros. film Gold Diggers of 1933, sung in the opening sequence by Ginger Rogers and chorus. The lyrics were written by Al Dubin and the music by Harry Warren. It became a standard and its melody is well known.

The song's lyrics reflect a positive financial turnaround and a fantasized end to the Great Depression, which in the U.S. began to turn around in early 1933 but wouldn't actually end until the late 1930s:

(Opening verse)
We're in the money!
We're in the money!
We've got a lot of what it takes to get along!
We're in the money!
The skies are sunny!
Ol' Man Depression, you are through, you done us wrong!
We never see a headline 'bout a bread line today,
And when we see the landlord,
We can look that guy right in the eye!
We're in the money!
Come on, my honey!
Let's lend it, spend it, send it rollin' around!

Early renderings of this song include those performed by Ted Lewis & His Band and Hal Kemp & His Orchestra. The entire song is never performed in the 1933 movie, though it introduces the film in the opening scene (wherein the performance is busted up by the police). Later in the movie, the tune is heard off stage in rehearsal as the director continues a discussion on camera about other matters. Dick Powell, who does not sing a note of "The Golddigger's Song" in the motion picture, recorded a version that sold well and was heard over the radio.

The song was used again in two other Warner Bros. productions: as the theme song of the 1933 Merrie Melodies cartoon We're in the Money; and as the theme and source music two years later in the 1935 film, We're in the Money.

Since its introduction, the song has been used several times in films and other media to denote a windfall (or happy turn of events - financial or otherwise) or sometimes to denote greed, for example, as seen in a scene from Chuck Jones' 1957 cartoon Ali Baba Bunny in reference to Daffy Duck.

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