Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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Link to comprehensive index and research notes
Youtube: all the Penny Songs I've recorded so far (with subtitles)
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List of the still-lost songs: do you know any of them?
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A week ago I got this email from a guy at the Library of Congress:

As you may know, the National Recording Registry is an annual list from the Library of Congress... Each of these recordings has been chosen by the Librarian of Congress, with input from the National Recording Preservation Board. Each of these recordings have been deemed so vital to the history of America—aesthetically, culturally or historically—that they demand permanent archiving in the nation’s library... Currently, those of us who work on the Registry are attempting to build out the above website with a variety of scholarly essays on each of the 525 titles on the Registry. I was wondering if you might be able write something for us on the topic of: "Yiddish Cylinders from the Standard Phonograph and Thomas Lambert Co."? Unfortunately, we are not able to pay you at this time.

The song he was referencing was this one, Dos Biselle Mashke (A little booze), written and sung by Solomon Smulewitz sometime around 1903. (I recently put him into Wikipedia if you're interested: Solomon Smulewitz). Here it is:


The Lambert Yiddish cylinders are among the oldest Yiddish recordings ever made and the only reason they are now widely available is that Henry Sapoznik, whom I met back in the late 1980s at his seminal retreat for Jewish musicians called KlezKamp, put together the Attractive Hebrews compilation for Archeophone Records (and received an award for it). (The cd's cover image is from a song called A Boychik up-to-date by Louis Gilrod and David Meyerowitz, both frequently seen on this blog. It's a great sheet music cover but, sadly, the lyrics are too annoying to sing.)

If I seem to be linking more than usual, it's because Sapoznik is a legendary character in all senses of the word (read about his long history in klezmer and American old-time music at Wikipedia).Yet the Library of Congress guy - who took the recording from this cd and who has the extensive liner notes - hadn't even bothered to contact him.

Sapoznik always has an interesting project underway. At his website (Henry Sapoznik) you can read about the most recent ones, and he says he'll soon be posting more of his work on Yiddish radio.

He's issued a number of cds of the oldest, rarest Yiddish recordings. Look them up and buy them. Read about the Lambert cylinders project and sample the tracks: Attractive Hebrews at the Archeophone website or at Amazon.

Sapoznik's transcription of the words and my translation from the Yiddish after the jump.

The word mashke is sometimes translated as whisky rather than generic liquor.

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Labels: travails

Allen Lewis Rickman wrote and asked if I'd post this song. I couldn't have done it without the transcription skills of Sam Weiss, who volunteered out of his esteem for Mr. Rickman!

I usually have to stick to songs for which there is either a broadside or sheet music because I'm not good at teasing out the lyrics of the old-time singers.

Here is Morris Goldstein singing:


I don't know anything about Morris Goldstein (though he has been featured on this blog several times before, you can put his name in the search box and see) and I also know nothing about pinochle except that my father and his brothers used to play it.

In Yiddish I've also seen it spelled pinakl, pinakel, pinokel, etc.

As usual, lots of double entendre here. Transcription and translation after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor

Here's our recording of Cheap! from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, Randy Kloko sang with me and Glenn Mehrbach is on keyboard:



This song is not from Lider magazin, I found it in the composer's own annual, Der teater zinger. I had the text for a long time and didn't think I'd be able to find the melody, but Eleanore Biezunski and Lorin Sklamberg at YIVO found me a recording of Solomon Smulewitz himself singing it. Thanks!

Although Smulewitz did not credit his source, I discovered that the verse for this song is taken from an American song, Good Bye Little Girl Good Bye by Gus Edwards (original lyrics by Will D. Cobb) published in 1904. (I don't know what war that soldier on the cover was going off to fight.)

Its somewhat martial theme fit this workers' anthem - for the hero of the tailoring trade and the nascent Garments' Union - very well. The chorus is not from the Edwards song; perhaps Smulewitz wrote it himself, or maybe he stole it from elsewhere. As often in these early labor songs, "The Red Flag" - the symbol of Communism - was seen as the solution to their woes. We discovered that wasn't the answer, but what can sustain us against the Robber Barons of our own era?

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.


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Labels: history, labor union, mores, politics, union, war

  Here's our recording of Cheap! from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, with Randy Kloko singing, me on fiddle and Glenn Mehrbach on keyboard:



The melody for this parody by Louis Gilrod is taken from "Gone, Gone, Gone," a ragtime song by T. J. Farron, Jr and Joseph M. Hollander. The song was sung by Russell & Locke:



It was about a man who lost his sweetheart, she was gone gone gone. Louis Gilrod turned this to a song about saving money. It mentions venereal disease more explicitly than any other song of the era. Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, food, humor, male chauvinism, yiddish ragtime

Here's our recording of Ven ikh volt gevezn prezident, from the cd Yiddish Ragtime.Randy Kloko is singing, Glenn Mehrbach is playing keyboard.


Isidore Lillien (Isidor Lilien etc) later had a very respectable career writing for the Yiddish theater, but here he put his hand to the work of writing Yiddish lyrics for currently popular American songs, in this case a gentle ragtime number by J. B. Mullen, published in 1902.

The original song is about a little maid in Florida's sunny clime. The parody is a fantasy based on complaints about life, problems that would be remedied by the speaker if he were to become president.

Lilien was born in Rzeszow (Reyshe), Galicia in 1882. He came to America with his family at the age of ten, joined a dramatic union at 16 and at 17 was working at a vaudeville house. Of interest to me: Zylbercweig wrote that Lillian's comedy "Gimpel Beynish der Shadkhn" was staged in 1911. I hadn't thought Gimpel was even invented until a year later.

The lyrics here give a rich detailed overview of immigrant life on the lower east side.

Oddly, the fourth verse is about Nicholas II and the pogroms. The song was long already so we decided to skip that verse.

Transliteration of the yiddish and translation after the jump.

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Labels: humor, immigration, sarcasm, travails, workers, yiddish ragtime

This one was such a pleasure. Louis Gilrod, one of the two most prolific parodists featured in Lider magazin, wrote a classic workers' anthem, stirring, furious, bitter, to the cheerful tune of a frivolous WASPy classic.

Here's our recording from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, with Randy Kloko on vocals with me and Glenn Mehrbach on keyboard:


A lot of people have told me they're surprised that "Give My Regards To Broadway" was published in 1904 - they thought it was a song from a generation or two later. Also, people only recognize the chorus, the verse has not survived in popular memory.

In Yiddish shleser usually just means locks, but in German it also means castles, and Gilrod used both meanings very cleverly in this lyric, also the idea of people being locked up and locked out.

The song rings true in our current age when robber barons are flourishing and workers are oppressed. One sad difference between now and 115 years ago is that the service industry is almost all that's left in America: after decades of decline our country's industry, home industries, the trades, the labor unions, all have fallen on hard times. Who is standing up for workers now?

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.


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Labels: history, labor union, workers, yiddish ragtime

UPDATED because I recently learned (at Trip to Yiddishland) that geblibn mit di noz means very disappointed, left with nothing, deceived. But I don't know why!

I love when I can find historical evidence of the events described in the Penny Songs. I'm pretty sure this lyric is referring to the Cloakmaker's Strike of 1910, known as the 'Great Revolt,' carried out by more than 50,000 workers in New York, which was preceded in November 1909 by the "Shirtwaist Strike," also known as the Uprising of 20,000, mostly young Jewish women in their teens and early twenties. The Jewish Women's Archive notes:

The young strikers' courage, tenacity, and solidarity forced the predominantly male leadership in the needle trades and the American Federation of Labor to revise their entrenched prejudices against organizing women.

Both strikes were bitterly fought by the garment companies but the second strike ended with the bosses capitulating. Click the great picture for a larger view and see the end of the article for the sheet music cover with a fine, fine picture of Morris Rund the lyricist for so many of the Penny Songs. He was a proud Union man himself, a member of Local 100, the Kosher Bakers' Union.

Here's my version of the song, recorded today, click to hear it on youtube:



Here is the cover of the Yiddish song broadside, click for a larger view:


And here is the cover of "Take a Car," the specified melody. You can find it on line and you can also find a cute period recording of it on Youtube.



Morris Rund used the same tune for a very similar strike song. I believe he could churn these out by the dozens. The second one is "The Tailors' strike" - here is the first verse and chorus, if you want more let me know.

Der shnayder strayk

Toyzender shnayder oy kempfn yetst laydn
Tsu lib a shtikl broyt
Farlaykhtn dos lebn iz yetst zeyer shtrebn
nit laydn zo fil noyt
Es kumt yetst di ende fun di boses bande
Genug shoyn geshklaft far zey
Genug shoyn gelitn fun di parazitn
Yo, endlekh vet ir vern Fray

Yo der strayk, yo der strayk!
Der groyser shnayder strayk
Kempfn atsinder darf a yeder glaykh
Genug shoyn gezoygn oy dos blut fun aykh
Yo der strayk, yo der strayk!
Oy arbeter makht nit keyn shvayg
Shteyt nit fun vayter
Tsu shmetert di kaytn
Gefrayt aykh fun der shklaferay!

Transliteration from the Yiddish and translation of Der zig after the jump

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Labels: history, labor union, New York, travails, union