This song was written for Fanny Brice in Ziegfeld Follies of 1921, playing specifically to Brice’s comic persona as a Jewish immigrant girl living in New York, delivering this song about her family’s frugality in a thick accent.
(Verse)
Father has a business
Strictly second-hand
Everything from toothpicks to a baby grand
Stuff in our apartment
Came from Father's store
Even things I'm wearing, someone wore before
It's no wonder that I feel abused
I never get a thing that ain't been used
(Chorus 1)
I'm wearing second-hand hats
Second-hand clothes
That's why the call me Second Hand Rose
Even our piano in the parlor
Father bought for ten cents on the dollar
Second-hand pearls
I'm wearing second-hand curls
I never get a single thing that's new
Even Jakie Cohen, he's the man I adore
Had the nerve to tell me he'd been married before
Everyone knows that I'm just Second Hand Rose
From Second Avenue
(Chorus 2)
I'm wearing second-hand shoes
Second-hand hose
All the girls hand me their second-hand beaus
Even my pajamas, when I don them
Have somebody else's 'nitials on them
Second-hand rings
I'm sick of second-hand things
I never get what other girlies do
Once while strolling through the Ritz, a woman got my goat
She nudged her friend and said, "Oh, look, there goes my last year's coat!"
Everyone knows that I'm just Second Hand Rose
From Second Avenue
Second Hand Rose was written by James F. Hanley & Grant Clarke.