I got plenty of nothin’,
And nothin’s plenty for me.

These lines are from the song “I Got Plenty o’ Nuttin’,” with lyrics by Ira Gershwin and music by George Gershwin, written for the 1935 folk opera Porgy and Bess. Sung by Porgy, a disabled beggar living in the impoverished Black community of Catfish Row in Charleston, South Carolina, the number comes after he has found a measure of happiness and security through his relationship with Bess. In the midst of material deprivation, the song functions as a buoyant declaration of contentment and emotional sufficiency, contrasting the characters’ harsh social realities with a moment of exuberant self-affirmation.

The couplet turns poverty into paradox: “nothin’” becomes “plenty” when measured by inner freedom rather than possessions. Porgy’s voice insists that dignity and joy can exist outside economic wealth, reframing lack as liberation from worry, envy, and social striving. At the same time, the line can be read as bittersweet or ironic within the opera’s broader arc: the characters’ precarious lives are shaped by forces—racism, violence, addiction, exploitation—that optimism alone cannot overcome. The lyric’s power lies in this tension between genuine resilience and the fragility of the happiness it celebrates.