https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OthLwh5Gtvw
Song 2: Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? - Bing Crosby, Yip Harburg, and Jay Gorney
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eih67rlGNhU
Song 3: If We Make It Through December - Merle Haggard
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-IJxTd8dCo
My primary song choice for this blog is Eminem's "Mockingbird". Mockingbird has been one of my favorite songs since my childhood, but after recently rereading the lyrics, I only recently recognized the references it has to unemployment. Low unemployment is perhaps the most important macroeconomic goal, since a long period of high unemployment leads to several dire consequences, other than those that are just purely based on economic theory. There are few things more soul-crushing than an utter sense of worthlessness, which stems frequently from feeling like one has no contribution to make to society or anything that they've achieved in life. Rampant unemployment can easily cause previously well-off families to lose all their savings, or their standard of life, and unemployment that lasts for too long often forces families to sell off houses, cars, and other absolutely essential requirements for functioning in society. At that point, even a recovery period makes it impossible to get a job or comeback from the devastation, and this leads to higher suicide and crime rates.
Some of the lyrics in Mockingbird that I felt had a connection to unemployment were "I'm trying to give you the life that I never had", "Daddy's always on the move", but this entire passage was very heartbreaking and significantly referenced the struggles of unemployment:
"I remember back one year when daddy had no money
Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up
And stuck 'em under the tree and said some of 'em were from me
Cause daddy couldn't buy 'em
I'll never forget that Christmas I sat up the whole night crying
Cause daddy felt like a bum, see daddy had a job
But his job was to keep the food on the table for you and mom."
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