Various Artists - Brother Can You Spare A Dime: Songs Of The Depression (@256)

It's always the same plot isn't it? The deadly combination of greed with the lack of control by the state always leads to situations similar to what we experience today. The reasons that caused the Great Depression these days back in 1929 are more or less the same with those of the Crisis today. Easy credit, (in 1929 for stocks, in 2008 for houses) led us to the same result. The reasons and the conditions which created our Crisis (or should we better name it "the Great Depression of 2008") were described by a single statement of Nicholas Lazares, a former manager of Lehman Brothers, who had resigned before the Crisis started: "Greed trumped everything (...). They were willing to make a loan to an orangutan." So, for some scumbags' bonuses it's the whole world now that is seriously affected. It seems that we have entered into a downward spiral with no visible end.
It is self-evident that today's (or should we say yesterday's) form of capitalism faces severe function problems. The 'funny' thing is of course that the 'experts' who were asserting that the market always balances by itself and were repulsing any state control, are now in the queue begging the state to finance (with the tax-payers' money) their failure.
History also teaches us that the US finally got over the Great Depression through the war economy of WWII, and also that fascist regimes in Germany and Italy found a very fertile ground through promises of "law and order" to the, horrified by the Depression effects, citizens...

Today's upload is a compilation of some of the songs written during and for the Great Depression. Unfortunately, it looks like we might be hearing a lot of songs like these soon. Some (if not all) of the lyrics depict today's Crisis perfectly; take a look at the lyrics of 1931's song "Cheer Up! Smile! Nertz! (Ballyhoo)".

Sure, business is bunk,
And Wall Street is sunk,
We're all of us broke, and ready to croak.
We've nothing to dunk,
Can't even get drunk,
And all the while, they tell us to smile:

Cheer up, gentle citizens, though you have no shirts,
Happy days are here again. Cheer up, smile, nertz!
All aboard prosperity, giggle 'till it hurts!
No more bread-line charity. Cheer up, smile, nertz!
Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer,
Up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer, better times are here.
Sunny smilers we must be, the optimist asserts,
Let's hang the fat-head to a tree! Cheer up, smile, nertz!

The world's in the red,
We're better off dead,
Depression, they say's in session to stay.
Our judges are queer,
Our banks disappear,
And all the while, they tell us to smile:

Cheer up, gentle citizens, though you have no shirts,
Happy days are here again. Cheer up, smile, nertz!
All aboard prosperity, giggle 'till it hurts,
No more bread-line charity. Cheer up, smile, nertz!

Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer,
Up, cheer up, cheer up, cheer, better times are here.
Sunny smilers we must be, the optimist asserts,
Let's hang the fat-head to a tree! Cheer up, smile, nertz!

Nertz!
The following video gathers some of the staggering Great Depression photos of Dorothea Lange.


download link (with booklet info etc.): here