Happy Days Are Here Again Song
Written 91 years ago, it became the theme song for FDR's campaign and the New Deal for America
By PAUL ZOLLO
This was the outset song that came to mind upon hearing the news – real news – that Joe Biden has been elected President today. It is a day in America for commemoration. Regardless of party affiliation, today is proof that America is non broken. Republic, our course of it, though far from perfect, did non plummet. Although it's got age-old cracks in it, similar that big freedom bell, it continues to sing. Because as Leonard Cohen reminded us in his song about song and human promise, "Anthem," "there is a crack in everything; it'due south where the low-cal gets in. "
Which brings us back to "Happy Days Are Here Once more," every bit information technology is perfect – over again – for this moment of national celebration. Democracy survived and triumphed. This is a twenty-four hour period to rejoice. To sing along – and dance fifty-fifty – to this song. Even if nobody wants to dance with you, grab a cat, or a dog. They ever love a good reason for a happy trip the light fantastic toe.
Songwriters Jack Yellen and Milton Ager wrote "Happy Days Are Hither Again" before the big stock marketplace crash in 1929. But every bit songwriters often do, they seemed to know what was coming. It'southward i of many famous songs to be prophetic, as the crash triggered the Smashing Low. It became a theme song then for hope, equally it has many times since. Also an anthem of celebration and gratitude when that promise is realized.
Like our current moment of lockdown, unemployment and loss, America in the Depression-era Thirties was a state in need of promise: there was widespread unemployment, bread-lines everywhere, factories shut down, farms foreclosed. A long flavour of darkness and despair persisted through well-nigh of the 1930s. As it is said, Democracy dies in darkness. This song offered some light, a real-time ray of hope. It wasn't unreal, pie-in-the-sky – or pie anywhere – hope. It wasn't most pretending everything is peachy. It was about keeping hope alive. Not giving upwardly. We're going to get through.
Which is why information technology'southward all about now.
The outgoing leadership helped spread the fires of division – between the political parties, the classes, the races, the nationalities, fifty-fifty the genders.
During which our already fractured gild was burdened past the pandemic of virus, but too the ongoing war on truth, endless misinformation, propaganda, race hatred, ignorance, intolerance, police brutality, riots, fires in our cities and in our forests, hurricanes, earthquakes and national house arrest. And at a time when Americans were in dire need of clarity, the leadership intentionally disseminated daily barrages of lies, even about the lethal virus destroying countless America lives everyday.
Disinformation about the election itself in tandem with perpetual attacks on the press and truth itself, although formidably persuasive to millions of Americans, failed to derail the election. If anything, it empowered the populace to take activeness, and vote.
Then this vocal, some 91 years past the season of its creation, nevertheless works, and improve than nigh. Information technology'southward the reason it has endured for virtually a century now. Information technology'southward been born and reborn many times, and maybe due to the ongoing human need for hope, sounds new every fourth dimension.
Milton Ager and Jack Yellen not only wrote the song, they recorded its outset incarnation. It was an immediate hitting. Because of its universal theme and jubilant spirit, it fits perfectly in countless occasions, when it steps upwardly to exist the the perfect theme song. Also the Depression and its end, it was the theme first for the stop of Prohibition, when drinking booze was legalized once again in America. Through other periodic times of darkness information technology's been brought dorsum with promise, and with gratitude at the cease of those times. Such as now.
Annette Hanshaw, who was one of the most famous and most beloved singers of the 30s, had a hit with information technology that she recorded with Ben Selvin and his Orchestra. In the 50s came Judy Garland's many records of it and so those of Barbra Streisand. On several occasions the two of them performed it live together.
So in accolade of America and our ongoing beingness, and the hopeful health of our ongoing experiment in Democracy, here's an old song for y'all. Only a good one.
"Happy Days Are Here Again"
By Jack Yellen & Milton Alger
As recorded by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra,
with Lou Levin, Nov, 1929 for
the 1930 MGM movie Chasing Rainbows.
And then long sad times, get long bad times,
We are rid of yous at last
Howdy gay times, cloudy gray times,
You are now a thing of the past
Happy days are here once more,
The skies above are clear again
So, let us sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again
All together, shout information technology now,
There'southward no one who can dubiety it at present,
Then let's tell the globe about it at present,
Happy days are here once more
Your cares and troubles are gone,
There'll be no more from now on, from now on!
Happy days are here over again,
The skies above are articulate once again
So, allow us sing a song of cheer once again,
Happy times, happy nights, happy days are here again
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Source: https://americansongwriter.com/happy-days-are-here-again-the-perfect-song-for-now/
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