Milton Ager Happy Days Are Here Again
Written 91 years ago, it became the theme vocal for FDR's entrada and the New Deal for America
By PAUL ZOLLO
This was the first 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 celebration. Regardless of political party affiliation, today is proof that America is not broken. Democracy, our class of it, though far from perfect, did non plummet. Although it's got age-old cracks in it, like that large freedom bell, it continues to sing. Considering as Leonard Cohen reminded us in his vocal nigh song and man promise, "Anthem," "in that location is a cleft in everything; it's where the light gets in. "
Which brings us back to "Happy Days Are Here Once more," as it is perfect – over again – for this moment of national celebration. Republic survived and triumphed. This is a day to rejoice. To sing forth – and dance even – to this song. Fifty-fifty if nobody wants to dance with you, grab a cat, or a dog. They ever love a good reason for a happy dance.
Songwriters Jack Yellen and Milton Ager wrote "Happy Days Are Here Again" before the big stock market crash in 1929. Just as songwriters oft do, they seemed to know what was coming. It'south 1 of many famous songs to exist prophetic, equally the crash triggered the Great Depression. Information technology became a theme song and then for hope, as information technology has many times since. Besides an canticle of celebration and gratitude when that hope 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, staff of life-lines everywhere, factories shut down, farms foreclosed. A long flavor of darkness and despair persisted through most of the 1930s. As it is said, Democracy dies in darkness. This song offered some low-cal, a real-time ray of hope. It wasn't unreal, pie-in-the-sky – or pie anywhere – promise. It wasn't nearly pretending everything is slap-up. It was about keeping promise alive. Non giving up. We're going to get through.
Which is why it's all about now.
The outgoing leadership helped spread the fires of partition – betwixt the political parties, the classes, the races, the nationalities, even the genders.
During which our already fractured guild was encumbered by the pandemic of virus, only likewise 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 abort. And at a fourth dimension when Americans were in dire need of clarity, the leadership intentionally disseminated daily barrages of lies, fifty-fifty well-nigh the lethal virus destroying endless America lives everyday.
Disinformation about the ballot 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 action, and vote.
So this song, some 91 years past the flavor of its creation, still works, and meliorate than near. It's the reason information technology has endured for nearly a century now. It's been born and reborn many times, and possibly due to the ongoing human need for promise, sounds new every time.
Milton Ager and Jack Yellen not simply wrote the song, they recorded its first incarnation. It was an firsthand hit. Considering of its universal theme and celebrating spirit, information technology fits perfectly in endless occasions, when it steps up to exist the the perfect theme song. Likewise the Depression and its terminate, information technology was the theme showtime for the end of Prohibition, when drinking alcohol was legalized again in America. Through other periodic times of darkness it'southward been brought back with hope, and with gratitude at the end 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 and so those of Barbra Streisand. On several occasions the two of them performed it live together.
Then in honor of America and our ongoing existence, and the hopeful health of our ongoing experiment in Democracy, here's an old vocal for you. But a good one.
"Happy Days Are Here Again"
By Jack Yellen & Milton Alger
Equally recorded by Leo Reisman and His Orchestra,
with Lou Levin, November, 1929 for
the 1930 MGM film Chasing Rainbows.
And so long sad times, become long bad times,
Nosotros are rid of you at last
Howdy gay times, cloudy grey times,
Yous are now a thing of the by
Happy days are hither again,
The skies above are clear once again
So, permit the states sing a song of cheer again,
Happy days are here again
All together, shout it at present,
There's no one who tin can doubt it now,
So allow's tell the world about it now,
Happy days are here once more
Your cares and troubles are gone,
At that place'll be no more from at present on, from now on!
Happy days are here again,
The skies above are clear again
So, permit us sing a song of cheer once again,
Happy times, happy nights, happy days are here once more
Source: https://americansongwriter.com/happy-days-are-here-again-the-perfect-song-for-now/
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