CHEER UP! SMILE! NERTZ!*
Words, Norman Anthony. Music, Misha Portnoff and Wesley Portnoff, ©1931.
As recorded by Eddie Cantor

1. Sure business is punk,
And Wall Street is sunk.
We're all of us broke,
And ready to croak.
We've nothing to dunk,
Can't even get drunk,
And all the while they tell us to smile.

CHORUS: Cheer up, gentle citizens,
Though you have no shirts.
Happy days are here again.
Cheer up! Smile! Nertz!
All aboard, prosperity!
Giggle till it hurts.
No more bread-line charity!
Cheer up! Smile! Nertz!
Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer up! Cheer!
Up-cheer! Up-cheer! Up-cheer! Better times are here.
Sunny smilers we must be,
The optimist asserts.
Let's hang the fathead to a tree.
Cheer up! Smile! Nertz!

2. The world's in the red.
We're better off dead.
Depression, they say,
'S in session to stay.
Our judges are queer.
Our banks disappear,
And all the while they tell us to smile. CHORUS


* Title as given in the album "The Panic is On: The Great American Depression as Seen by the Common Man." ASCAP uses the spelling "nerts." The 78-rpm Discography Project lists a record called "Ballyhoo Theme Song Cheer up." The British Library has sheet music cataloged as "Cheer up, Smile : Nerts". I believe these are all the same song.