Ain't We Got Fun?

"Ain't We Got Fun?" is a popular foxtrot published in 1921 with music by Richard A. Whiting, lyrics by Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn.

It was first performed in the show "Satires of 1920", then moved into vaudeville and recordings. "Ain't We Got Fun?" and both its jaunty response to poverty and its promise of fun "Every morning / Every evening", and "In the meantime, / In between time" have become symbolic of the Roaring Twenties, and it appears in some of the major literature of the decade, including "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and in Dorothy Parker's award-winning short story of 1929, "Big Blonde".

Composition

"Ain't We Got Fun" follows the structure of a foxtrot. ["Fixing the Blame for Jazz" by Edward C. Barroll From "The Metronome" of September 1922. Republished in cite book|accessdate=2008-10-03|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=2-E7KT8vcmYC&pg=PA206&dq=Ain%27t+we+got+fun%3F+foxtrot&client=firefox-a&sig=ACfU3U0LDF6L7gKFfwqyOwThmotg22qQ_w#PPA206,M1|editor=Karl Koenig|title=Jazz in Print (1856-1929): An Anthology of Selected Early Readings in Jazz History|publisher=Pendragon Press|date=2002 |pages=205-206] The melody uses mainly quarter notes, and has an unsyncopated refrain made up largely of variations on a repeated four-note phrase.cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=7VgxtOq1VRcC&pg=PA33&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=nnDiSNa2NomyyQTWxoHoBA&sig=ACfU3U0s0wkmFatB6Ycq_2pFKX9iloIxlQ|author=Nicholas E. Tawa|title=Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century: Styles and Singers and What They Said About America|publisher=Scarecrow Press|date=2005|pages=33] cite book |author=Philip Furia|title=The Poets of Tin Pan Alley: A History of America's Great Lyricists|publisher=Oxford University Press Press|date=1992|isbn=0195074734, page 76.] [cite book |accessdate=2008-10-03|url=http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gOBVWBtwO7gC&pg=PA149&dq=Ain%27t|author=Simon Frith|title=Popular Music: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies|publisher=Routledge|date=2004|pages=149] The "Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia" describes it as a "Roaring Twenties favourite" and praises its vibrancy, "zesty music", and comic lyrics. [Thomas S. Hischak (2002), " [http://books.google.com/books?lr=&id=LlkYAAAAIAAJ&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun+classic&q=%22Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun%22+&pgis=1#search The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia] ", Greenwood Press, ISBN 0313319928, page 8.]

Philip Furia, connecting Kahn's lyrics to the song's music, writes that:

Critical appraisals vary regarding what view of poverty the song's lyrics take.Nicholas E. Tawa summarizes the refrain "Ain't we got fun" as a "satirical and jaunty rejoinder" toward hard times. Diane Holloway and Bob Cheney, authors of "American History in Song: Lyrics from 1900 to 1945", concur, and describe the black humor in the couple's relief that their poverty shields them from worrying about damage to their nonexistent Pierce Arrow luxury automobile.cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=Zj5QxjMh9aAC&pg=PA204&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=7YviSNPII6W0zASxq9HiBA&sig=ACfU3U0fcRZb5AJxM86xo8cGgBqrnHH03A#PPA203,M1|author=Diane Holloway, Diane Holloway, Ph.D., Bob Cheney|title=American History in Song: Lyrics from 1900 to 1945|publisher=iUniverse.com|date=2001|pages=203-204]

Yet George Orwell highlights the lyrics of "Ain't We Got Fun" as an example of working class unrest:quote|All through the war and for a little time afterwards there had been high wages and abundant employment; things were now returning to something worse than normal, and naturally the working class resisted. The men who had fought had been lured into the army by gaudy promises, and they were coming home to a world where there were no jobs and not even any houses. Moreover, they had been at war and were coming home with a soldier's attitude to life, which is fundamentally, in spite of discipline, a lawless attitude. There was a turbulent feeling in the air.cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=E-ZpkC4RNfIC&pg=PA141&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=CZ7iSPfbB4WQtAODuMneDg&sig=ACfU3U13ohTCd0Cs8s3X08_ZRYrDKMVPlQ|author=George Orwell|title=The Road to Wigan Pier|publisher= Taylor & Francis|date=1958|pages=140-141]
George Orwell|"The Road to Wigan Pier"

After quoting a few of the song's lines Orwell refers to the era as a time when "people had not yet settled down to a lifetime of unemployment mitigated by endless cups of tea, " a turn of phrase which the later writer Larry Portis contests.cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=8ZMcPwDzqCYC&pg=PA145&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=hHviSLSyD5byMpmv6Cg&sig=ACfU3U2sQU_NR_DaSZ7OHdgoj6AR9JB8ow#PPA146,M1|author=Larry Portis|title=Soul Trains|publisher=Virtualbookworm Publishing|date=2002|pages=145-146]

quote|He [Orwell] could just as easily have concluded that the song revealed a certain fatalism, a resignation and even capitulation to forces beyond the control of working people. Indeed, it might be only a small step from saying, "Ain't we got fun" in the midst of hardship to the idea that the poor are happier than the rich--because, as the Beatles intoned, "Money can't buy me love." It is possible that "Aint We Got Fun", a product of the music industry (as opposed to 'working-class culture') was part of a complex resolution of crisis in capitalist society. Far from revealing the indomitable spirit of working people, it figured into the means with which they were controlled. It is a problem of interpretation laying at the heart of popular music, one which emerged with particular clarity at the time of the English Industrial Revolution.|Larry Portis|Soul Trains

However, others concentrate on the fun that they got. Stephen J. Whitfield, citing lyrics such as "Every morning / Every evening / Ain't we got fun", writes that the song "set the mood which is indelibly associated with the Roaring Twenties", a decade when pleasure was sought and found constantly, morning, evening, and "In the meantime / In between time". Philip Furia and Michael Lasser see implicit references to sexual intercourse in lyrics such as "the happy chappy, and his bride of only a year."cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url= http://books.google.com/books?id=-ENtazHbVc4C&pg=PA56&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=nnDiSNa2NomyyQTWxoHoBA&sig=ACfU3U1DT7zSMEESrK32GIyFYx63u-zFfA|author= Philip Furia, Michael Lasser|title=America's Songs: The Stories Behind the Songs of Broadway, Hollywood, and Tin Pan Alley|publisher=CRC Press|date=2006| pages=56] Looked at in the context of the 1920s, an era of increasing sexual freedom, they point out that, while here presented within the context of marriage (in other songs it is not), the sexuality is notably closer to the surface than in previous eras and is presented as a delightful, youthful pleasure.cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=WC3PonIV9PQC&pg=PA60&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=c4TiSLaEF5b0ygTPv_DjBA&sig=ACfU3U1bmFnKFyIdv79d6xr-jRQaEuR0mA|author=Catherine Gourley|title=Flappers and the New American Woman: Perceptions of Women from 1918 Through the 1920s|publisher=Twenty-First Century Books|date=2007|pages=60]

There are several variations on the lyrics. For example, "American History in Song" quotes the lyrics:quote
:They won't smash up our Pierce Arrow,:We ain't got none:They've cut my wages:But my income tax will be so much smaller:When I'm paid off,:I'll be laid off:Ain't we got fun?

The sheet music published in 1921 by Jerome K. Remick and Co. leaves this chorus out completely, [Richard A. Whiting, Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn, (1921) "", Jerome K. Remick and Co., New York] whereas a recording for Edison Records by Billy Jones keeps the reference to the Pierce Arrow, but then continues as in the sheet music: "There's nothing surer / The rich get rich and the poor get laid off / In the meantime,/ In between time/ Ain't we got fun?" [Billy Jones (1921), performing "" by Richard A. Whiting, Raymond B. Egan and Gus Kahn, Edison Records Edison Blue Amberol #4309.]

Reception and performance history

It premièred in the show "Satires of 1920", where it was sung by Arthur West, then entered the vaudeville repertoire of Ruth Roye. A hit recording by Van and Schenck increased its popularity,cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=6szF5VprkHAC&pg=PA5&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=75LiSOTHFoOoM97q6Cg&sig=ACfU3U1CEuqv6_lhWZOXNIhrlZ8XrSitKg|author= David A. Jasen|title= A Century of American Popular Music: 2000 Best-loved and Remembered Songs (1899-1999)|publisher= Taylor & Francis|date=2002|pages=203-204] and grew into a popular standard.

The song appears in the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel "The Great Gatsby", when Daisy Buchanan and Gatsby meet again after many years,cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=cj_2I-6Xj60C&pg=PA94&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=c4TiSLaEF5b0ygTPv_DjBA&sig=ACfU3U0K9zzxbkY3GN6SYGZtr89EE_kBkg|author=Stephen J. Whitfield|title=In Search of American Jewish Culture|publisher=UPNE|date=2001|pages=94-95] [F. Scott Fitzgerald, (1925) " [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200041.txt The Great Gatsby] ", Project Gutenberg. (Chapter 5)] and appears in Dorothy Parker's 1929 short story, "Big Blonde". [Dorothy Parker's "The Big Blonde", in "The Vicious Circle: Mystery and Crime Stories by Members of the Algonquin Round Table" (2007), edited by Otto Penzler, published by Pegasus Books, ISBN 1933648678. p. 115.] Warner Brothers used the song in two musicals during the early 1950s: The Gus Kahn biopic "I'll See You in My Dreams" and "The Eddie Cantor Story". Woody Allen used the song in his 1983 film "Zelig".cite book |accessdate=2008-09-30|url=http://books.google.com/books?id=t_UTbNIbLCUC&pg=PA273&dq=Ain%27t+We+Got+Fun&lr=&ei=yLHiSNqUI46IswPlpujeDg&sig=ACfU3U25Mh3jiAVg-tAuzB7zUrbFDc99og|author=George Orwell|title=Woody Allen on Woody Allen: In Conversation With Stig Bjorkman|publisherWoody Allen, Stig Bjorkman|date=1995|pages=273]

References