On Wednesday, June 25, 1997 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Jim Edelman wrote:   
   > I was listening to some of my albums a while ago, and I came across a   
   > line in the song "Brother can you spare a dime." The line is:   
   >    
   >  "Say don't you remember? They called me Al.  It was Al all the time.   
   > Say don't you remember?  I'm your pal.  Brother can you spare a dime?   
   >    
   > Now this sounds a little too similar to Paul Simon's "You can call me   
   > Al" to be a coincidence. Just from the context it seems to me that it   
   > must be a term of respect of some sort.  Does anyone know the   
   > historical significance of this phrase?   
   >    
   > It’s something that has been bothering me for a long time.   
   >    
   >    
   > Jim Edelman   
      
   It may be a reference to the Roaring Twenties and the reign of Al Capone   
   selling illegal booze and corrupting public officials. In these years the   
   stock market crashed to half its previous value and so did US GDP because of   
   dust bowl conditions on the    
   Prairies that destroyed farms.  Unemployment was the norm, teachers were being   
   paid less than half their wages, children were skipping meals and staying in   
   bed to conserve energy. Prohibition created a disregard for the law among   
   large swathes of the    
   population and a problem for cities because illegal businesses tend not to pay   
   taxes. And they tend to corrupt both the banking and political systems to suit   
   their purposes (ie laundering money, ensuring the police "fight crime"   
   somewhere else) The    
   president of the day, Hoover, was partly responsible, out of touch with the   
   desperate plight of the average citizen. Anyway, it's a great tune, same   
   writer wrote the lyrics for "over the rainbow"   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)