"Ain't We Got Fun" by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn (1921)

MUSIC VIDEO

LYRICS
Bill collectors gather
'Round and rather
Haunt the cottage next door
Men the grocer and butcher sent
Men who call for the rent

But with in a happy chappy

And his bride of only a year

Seem to be so cheerful

Here's an earful

Of the chatter you hear

Every morning

Every evening

Ain't we got fun

Not much money

Oh but honey

Ain't we got fun

The rent's unpaid dear

We haven't a bus

But smiles were made dear

For people like us

In the winter in the Summer

Don't we have fun

Times are bum and getting bummer

Still we have fun

There's nothing surer

The rich get rich and the poor get children

In the meantime

In the between time

Ain't we got fun

Just to make their trouble nearly double

Something happen'd last night

To their chimney a gray bird came

Mister Stork is his name

And I'll bet two pins

A pair of twins

Just happen'd in with the bird

Still they're very gay and merry

Just at dawning I heard

Every morning

Every evening

Don't we have fun

Twins and cares dear come in pairs dear

Don't we have fun

We've only started

As mommer and pop

Are we downhearted

I'll say that we're not

Landlords mad and getting madder

Ain't we got fun

Times are so bad and getting badder

Still we have fun

There's nothing surer

The rich get rich and the poor get poorer

In the meantime

In between time

Ain't we got fun

ANALYSIS

            The Roaring 20s didn’t roar for everyone. “Even during the most prosperous years of the Roaring Twenties, most families lived below what contemporaries defined as the poverty line” (“The Great…” 2002). “Ain’t We Got Fun” is a reflection of the cynical outlook many impoverished Americans had at the time. The song was a “satirical and jaunty rejoinder to the dismal times, ‘ain’t we got fun,’ chimed with the prevalent thinking” (Tawa 2005). The song rebels mainly through its lyrics; it possess a simple melody with no syncopation. “Ain’t We Got Fun” interweaves harsh reality checks with sarcastic claims of fun: “Landlords mad and getting madder / Ain't we got fun / Times are so bad and getting badder” (“Raymond B…” 2014). It addresses the economic inequality and anger towards it that was hidden by the overall increases in wage and living standards that the Roaring 20s brought.

WORKS CITED

“Raymond B. Egan & Gus Kahn – Ain't We Got Fun.” Genius, Genius Media Group, 26 Nov.

2014, genius.com/Raymond-b-egan-and-gus-kahn-aint-we-got-fun-lyrics.

“The Great Depression: Why It Happened.” Digital History, 1 Feb. 2002,

www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=2&psid=3432.

Tawa, Nicholas E. "Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and
            Singers and What They Said About America." Scarecrow Press, 2005, p. 33.