'Money makes the world go round,' shriek Sally Bowles and the MC in Cabaret. It's a fact of which many a composer and lyricist has remained keenly aware, with scores of hit songs hingeing on the emotional impact of money, its possession, or lack of it. Here are ten of the best examples of songs about money, plucked from the world of classical music and beyond.
Best songs about money
Giacomo Puccini: Che gelida manina (La bohème)
Love, class and money are inextricably linked in Puccini’s La bohème, focusing, as it does, on the emotional lives of poor, struggling artists in 19th-century Paris. This Act I aria, sung by Rodolfo on first meeting Mimi, makes the point neatly. For all its tenderness and soaring passion, couched in some of the opera’s most ravishing music, he makes no bones about his poverty: “I am, I am a poet. What's my employment? Writing! Is that a living? Hardly!” He goes on to insist that “In dreams and fond illusions or castles in the air / Richer is none on earth than I!” Still, we get the message: without the backstop of upper middle class wealth, this particular love story is unlikely to be the most plain-sailing. This is a song about having very little money...
Jerry Bock: If I were a rich man (Fiddler on the Roof)
Next up in our list of songs about money is this little chestnut. Once you’ve seen it you’ll never ‘unsee’ that image of Topol rocking out in a stable while his horse looks politely on. But why would you want to? Apparently based on a monologue from the stories of Sholem Aleichem entitled "If I were Rothschild", in reference to the wealthy Jewish banking family, the song simultaneously conveys a longing for God and commitment to faith, while admitting the cold, hard necessity of money. As such, it’s one of the show’s most emotionally complex songs, as well as its most stirring.
John Kander: The Money Song (Cabaret)
With its raunchy melody, this song about money appears to be a paean to capitalism. On a deeper level, however, it’s a grim satire on the emptiness of a society obsessed by the relentless pursuit of wealth. Meanwhile, lines like ‘Who’s that knocking on the door? Hunger’! betray the reality of poverty in post-Weimar Germany. It’s as creepy as anything you’ll find in this creepiest of musicals about the Nazis’ insidious rise to power. As songs about money go, this is one that's definitely on the 'pro' side of having lots of the stuff.
Gilbert and Sullivan: The Judge's Song (Trial by Jury)
This little song about money speaks of the impecuniousness of the legal profession, and one barrister’s calculated bid to make his fortune by becoming a judge: “I soon got tired of third-class journeys, And dinners of bread and water; So I fell in love with a rich attorney's / Elderly, ugly daughter. The rich attorney, he jumped with joy, And replied to my fond professions: ‘You shall reap the reward of your pluck, my boy, At the Bailey and Middlesex sessions.’ Witty, tuneful, and quintessentially “English”, it’s up there with the best of Gilbert and Sullivan.
Gustav Mahler: Das Irdische Leben (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)
The lyrics of this Mahler song, taken from the German folk poem collection "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (The Boy's Magic Horn), depict the desperation of a hungry child. The child repeatedly cries out, "Mother, oh mother, I am hungry! Give me bread, or else I will die!" The mother responds with promises of food, which, as the narrative unfolds, turn out to be empty. Reinforced by Mahler’s anguished harmonies and dramatic pauses, it’s a heartbreaking metaphor for the relentless cycle of societal poverty and deprivation.
Bessie Smith: Poor Man's Blues
Nicknamed ‘the Empress of Blues’, the ‘20s singer Bessie Smith was only nine when she, and her six siblings, were left orphaned. In order to survive, she, along with her brother Andrew, would busk on street corners of Chattanooga, Tennessee. She went on to build a reputation as a talent to be reckoned with, someone refreshingly unafraid to celebrate independence and sexual freedom, as well as her own working class background. For a time she became the highest-paid black entertainer of her day. But she never forgot those early lessons about poverty and this 1928 song about money makes that very clear.
The Beatles: Can't Buy Me Love
When pressed by American journalists in 1966 to reveal the “true” meaning of this song, Paul McCartney said: "I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that 'Can't Buy Me Love' is about a prostitute, I draw the line." He continued: "The idea behind it was that all these material possessions are all very well, but they won't buy me what I really want.”Years later, when reflecting on the perks that money had bought him, he commented: "It should have been 'Can Buy Me Love’" But it’s precisely the song’s lack of cynicism that makes it such a classic, embodying the fresh-faced optimism and excitement of the Beatles’ early years.
ABBA: Money, Money, Money
Talking about cynicism, this 1976 release about a woman who craves a well-off man to keep her finances in surplus, is as cynical as it gets. With its haunting yet zesty tune, coupled with the ironic lyrics, It certainly did well for ABBA, becoming a number-one chart hit in Australia, Belgium, France, West Germany, The Netherlands, Mexico and New Zealand.
Benjamin Britten: They Listen to Money (Peter Grimes)
When Benjamin Britten set out to write Peter Grimes, his opera about an outcast fisherman in a small, seaside community, his aim was to address “a subject very close to my heart—the struggle of the individual against the masses,” as he put it. “The more vicious the society, the more vicious the individual.” This little fragment from the opera sums up that aim, portraying Peter’s contempt for petty social codes, but also his compulsion to conform to them: “They listen to money / These Borough gossips / I have my visions / Fiery visions / They call me dreamer / They scoff at my dreams / And my ambition / But I know a way / To answer the Borough / I’ll win them over.”
Guiseppe Verdi: Ogni suo aver tal femmina (La Traviata)
This moment from Act II of Verdi’s La Traviata is one of the most climactic and upsetting in the opera, taking place just after Alfredo has won large sums of money at the gambling table with the Baron, his rival in love for Violetta. Alfredo asks Violetta to admit that she loves the Baron. In grief, she agrees that she does, and, furiously, Alfredo calls the guests to witness what he has to say, throwing his winnings at her feet in payment for her services.
