It was first performed in 1920 in the Fanchon and Marco revue Satires of 1920, then moved into vaudeville and recordings. "Ain't We Got Fun?" and 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." The song also contains variations on the phrase "The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" (substituting, e.g., "children" for "poorer"); though this phrase predates the song, its use increased with the song's popularity.
Composition
"Ain't We Got Fun" follows the structure of a foxtrot.[1] The melody uses mainly quarter notes, and has an unsyncopated refrain made up largely of variations on a repeated four-note phrase.[2][3][4] The Tin Pan Alley Song Encyclopedia describes it as a "Roaring Twenties favourite" and praises its vibrancy, "zesty music," and comic lyrics.[5]
Philip Furia, connecting Kahn's lyrics to the song's music, writes that:
Not only does Kahn use abrupt, colloquial—even ungrammatical—phrases, he abandons syntax for the telegraphic connections of conversation. Truncated phrases like not much money are the verbal equivalent of syncopated musical fragments.[6]
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.[2] 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.[7]
Yet George Orwell highlights the lyrics of "Ain't We Got Fun" as an example of working class unrest:
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.[8]
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.[8][9]
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.
[9]
However, others concentrate on the fun that they got. Stephen J. Whitfieldd, 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."[10]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."[11] 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.[11][12]
There are several variations on the lyrics. For example, American History in Song[7] quotes the lyrics:
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,[13] 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?"[14]
Reception and performance history
It premièred in the Fanchon and Marco show Satires of 1920, where it was sung by Arthur West, then entered the vaudeville repertoire of Ruth Roye.[15] A hit recording by Van and Schenck increased its popularity,[15] and grew into a popular standard.
The song was featured in the 1937 Merrie Melodies cartoon Ain't We Got Fun, as well as others released before and after that.
The song was sung by an off-screen chorus during the title sequence and concluding scene in the 1950 comedy, The Jackpot starring James Stewart.
The instrumental tune is heard at a party during a sequence set in the 1920s in the 1942 biopic, The Pride of the Yankees. Actress Teresa Wright sings part of the song's actual lyrics as well.
Doris Day and Gordon MacRae dance to the song in On Moonlight Bay (1951)—anachronistically, since the movie is set during the First World War, before the song was written.
In "Surrender Benson," season 15, episode 1 of Law & Order: SVU, serial rapist/murderer William Lewis can be seen/heard singing along with the song as he drives down the road with a kidnapped Detective Olivia Benson in a drugged/alcoholic stupor on the floor of the back seat.[23]
In season 2 of Jessica Jones, Jessica's mother Alisa plays the song on her grand piano until the crying of her neighbor's infant causes her to destroy the piano in a fit of rage. Jessica later finds sheet music for the song on a tablet when she finds the house.
Robert Hartshorne composed an instrumental rendition of the song for Thomas and Friends. It can be heard in some episodes such as the eighth series episode, Thomas and the Circus.
The song is heard in the 2013 video game BioShock Infinite in the Blue Ribbon Restaurant.
^F. Scott Fitzgerald, (1925) The Great Gatsby, Project Gutenberg. (Chapter 5)
^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, ISBN1-933648-67-8. p. 115.
