Songfacts®:

• Fanny Brice introduced this tune, written by Grant Clarke ("Dirty Hands, Dirty Face") and James F. Hanley ("Zing! Went The Strings In My Heart"), in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921, which opened at the Globe Theater on Broadway in June of that year.
  
  In the song, Brice complains that her entire life has been furnished by used items from her father's second-hand store, earning her the nickname "Second Hand Rose." She can never get a single thing that's new - even a man. She sings:
  
  Even Jake, the plumber, he's a man I adore
  He had the nerve to tell me he's been married before.
  
  Brice's 1922 recording was a hit in the US, where it peaked at #6 on the pop charts.
• Barbra Streisand, who portrayed Fanny Brice in the Broadway musical Funny Girl in 1964, performed this on her 1965 TV special My Name Is Barbra, which spawned two companion albums that same year. The single, which appeared on the second release, My Name Is Barbra, Two…, peaked at #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #5 on the Adult Contemporary chart. On the strength of her popular cover, "Second Hand Rose" was included in the 1968 film adaptation of Funny Girl, with Streisand reprising her role, even though it didn't feature in the stage production.
• This was omitted from the Funny Girl soundtrack album.
• Brice also performed this in the 1928 film My Man, which took its name from her signature song.
• The song inspired the 1922 silent film Second Hand Rose, starring Gladys Walton as the lovelorn daughter of a pawnshop owner.
• Various renditions have been used in TV shows and movies:
  
  Dean Martin sang a version with modified lyrics on his eponymous TV series in 1970.
  
  Actress Carmen Mathews sang it during her appearance in the 1978 M*A*S*H episode "Lil."
  
  Brice's version was used on Cold Case in the 2006 episode "Beautiful Little Fool," as well as the 1975 movie "Smile."
  
  A version by Vince Giordano and The Nighthawks was used on Boardwalk Empire in the episodes "Peg Of Old" (2011) and "Bone For Tuna" (2012).