Jimmy Durante: Give a Man a Job - 1933
Can you think of a more timely song?
Anticipating our current president’s stimulus package by over seventy years, Jimmy Durante captures the mood of the nation as perfectly now as he does then. It is almost as if you could replace all references to Roosevelt with Obama and the short would be just as powerful as it is hilariously entertaining.
Of course, the NRA in this case is the acronym for the National Recovery Administration, which as part of FDR’s New Deal, encouraged employment, a minimum wage and a maximum of weekly hours.
You and you and you and you
You’ve got a president now
He gave the land a New Deal
You hold the cards now you deal
You and you and you and you
Put shoulders to the plow
He gave us what we asked for
Now pay him back somehow
Step out in front,
Get back of the president
And give a man a job ...
James Francis "Jimmy" Durante (February 10, 1893 – January 29, 1980) was an American singer, pianist, comedian and actor. His distinctive clipped gravelly speech, comic language butchery, jazz-influenced songs, and large nose helped make him one of America's most familiar and popular personalities of the 1920s through the 1970s. His jokes about his nose included referring to it as a "Schnozzola", and the word became his nickname.
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Give a Man a Job
Anyone recognize Moe Howard as the exterminator?
You Tube Comments
corncornrocks - YOU AND YOU AND YOU AND YOU - 4 months ago
YeOldeTune - Lovely Moe Howard! - 9 months ago
migs404 - Great little skit by Durante. The message was so simple back then. Too bad the message of employers hiring new people is completely irrelevant in 2009. - 11 months ago
Asahamana - @migs404
No, no more people, that's how it was done back then. - 1 month ago
charmed822 - what are the lyrics to the song he is singing?
is there the entire lyrics?
i cant really here what he is singing. - 1 year ago
PersonalJesus348 - get behind the president
and give a man a job. Got it? - 1 year ago
AdamSheets18 - Is that Burgess Meredith? - 1 year ago
algebrafour - It is Jimmy Durante 2 - 1 year ago
dejahthoris - I wish the current media could see this. They seem fixated on trivialities at a time when we need to pull together to survive! - 1 year ago
tubette1 - awesome! - 1 year ago
fuzzybeard2016 - Very timely! I guess that the Bible verse "There is nothing new under the sun" is true! - 1 year ago
Ginyu - Was a good principle when there was more jobs than people,but now with technology and more people..theres more people than jobs.. - 1 year ago
InuitInua - Amusing video. Thank you for the upload. - 1 year ago
TomSmithMusic - What goes around, comes around I guess. - 1 year ago
smerdley - The second man that Jimmy Durante talks to in the audience was none other that Moe Howard, of The Three Stooges!
Roland Faust
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