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No song could typify America's widespread denial of its dire financial situation better than "Happy Days Are Here Again" [#12]. Jack Yellen wrote the words and Milton Ager wrote the music to this tune, which was introduced to the nation in 1930 in the film Chasing Rainbows. FDR would make it the theme of his presidential campaign two years later. "Happy Days Are Here Again" would remain a popular refrain throughout the decade as the theme of radio shows sponsored by Lucy Strike cigarettes, and it had a second cinematic life in the 1935 film Thanks A Million (Shapiro 662). Americans liked to hear this pie-eyed refrain in many voices in 1930; Benny Meroff [#9], Ben Selvin [#12], and Leo Reisman and Larry Levin [#33] all had successful recordings this year.
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