Ladies And Gentlemen: 87 Years Later, This Advice From Fred Astaire Still Goes
Fred Astaire spent a good part of the 1930s on the silver screen, dancing and singing to cheer up the down-and-outers of the Great Depression. Most of his songs were much alike—pleasant melodies about romance, dancing, or moonlight; but there is one that is a little bit different, which illustrates the quality of life expected in the 1930s. “Pick Yourself Up”, written in 1936, is special in that it has a lesson in it. The song is about a man who is trying his best to learn how to dance. In part, the lyrics, in Fred Astaire’s pleasant voice, are:
Nothing’s impossible, I have found
For when my chin is on the ground
I pick myself up, dust myself off
Start all over again
Don’t lose your confidence if you slip
Be grateful for a pleasant trip
And pick yourself up; dust yourself off;
Start all over again
Work like a soul inspired
‘Til the battle of the day is won
You may be sick and tired
But you’ll be a man, my son
Will you remember the famous men
Who had to fall to rise again
So take a deep breath;
Pick yourself up;
Dust yourself off;
Start all over again.[i]
Yet “Pick Yourself Up” is not only about learning to dance. While today hard work is being seriously undermined, this song illustrates the philosophy of life otherwise known as The American Way, of the old Try, Try, Again viewpoint.
The first stanza of the song shows the American spirit of not being too proud to fall or pick yourself back up. Americans should be able to take a fall. We fix our mistakes, and start all over again. Why, that’s how Thomas Edison invented a satisfactory lightbulb on his 3,000th try. The secret of Edison’s success, he admitted, was merely “the ability to stick to things.” And so many of us have had our chin on the ground. In this position, the question becomes not whether we’ll fall, but whether we’ll pick ourselves back up again. And each time we do, we we’ll be stronger, and the next fall won’t be quite so hard.
The second stanza shows that confidence is an important factor in success. Our outlook on life is one of the things that aids us. Maybe we’re slipping, maybe America is slipping—but in the end it won’t matter if we are able to get back up again, onto our feet.
“Work like a soul inspired . . . . You may be sick and tired, but you’ll be a man!” This line demonstrates what hard work means to a person’s character. When this song was penned, the Great Depression was a way of life for Americans; by now they had simply accepted the fact they had to work hard to stay on their feet. It is becoming rarer and harder in such a “don’t-rush, sit-back-and-relax, just chill, let’s-be-casual” society to live up to such standards (which, by the way, aren’t old-fashioned). What’s more, we aren’t used to starting from scratch.
The lines which speak of “the famous men who had to fall to rise again” epitomize what it took to build America into what she is; they refer to the individuals who show us that from failure comes experience. There are scores of examples. Richard Nixon may have been beaten by Kennedy in the 1960 presidential election, but he tried again, and won. Though Pearl Harbor may have knocked America off her feet briefly in 1941, we had the war won in four years. There is Glenn Cunningham, who thought a childhood accident had ended his passion, running, for good; yet he would go on to compete in the Olympics and be universally known in his time as “the fastest man in the world.” Then there is Henry Ford, and Alexander Graham Bell, and as already mentioned, Thomas Edison.
But the song doesn’t just apply to these famous individuals—even they wouldn’t have been so successful if they hadn’t tried again—it applies to average Americans in every state across the country. If you consider it, there is not a single success story that does not also include a fall.
Along these lines, author L. D. Stearns has something to add through a character in one of his short stories: “You can’t start at the top. How in the world is one to get to the top unless he climbs there? Oh, of course, if one wants merely to be carried to the top and dumped there, to be left until he falls down because he hasn’t learned to stand on that sort of footing, that’s another matter.”[ii]
“Pick Yourself Up” is an amiable reminder of a time when starting over again and trying harder were as much a part of an era as Fred Astaire’s lively toe-tapping across the stages of Hollywood. Yes, it may be eighty-seven years later, but Fred’s advice still goes. It will still work, if only we put it to good use.
Thanks for the advice, Mr. Astaire!
[i] For full lyrics to “Pick Yourself Up”, see Genius.com, https://genius.com/Fred-astaire-pick-yourself-up-lyrics. Accessed 4/17/23.
[ii] “Home for Thanksgiving.” L. D. Stearns. Published in The Youth’s Instructor, November 18, 1930 in Great Stories Remembered II. Tyndale House Publishers: Wheaton, Illinois. Compiled and ed. by Joe L. Wheeler, 1998.
