Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
Index of songs on this site
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This song is transliterated at the Florida Atlantic University website as S'Vet Zich Shoin Auspressen, translated "It Will Be Ironed By Itself." The sheet music has 'Svet sich shon auspresin' on the cover and 'S'wet sach shoin aus presin' on the first page. It was the hit of the 1919 play by Zalmon Libin, "Dem Schneiders Techter" (Dem shnayders tekhter) (The tailor's daughters) performed in Joseph Edelstein's Second Avenue Theater.

Libin (right) was born in 1872 in Imperial Russia, his birth name was Yisrael-Zalman Hurvits. He emigrated to England in 1891 and worked as a furrier. 6 months later he left for America. He wrote short stories and plays and was sometimes called "The O. Henry of the East Side" One of his pieces, Gebrokhene Hertzer (Broken Hearts) written in 1903 was filmed in 1926, starring Maurice Schwartz.


The star, Ludwig Satz, wrote the words of the songs. Joseph Rumshinsky claimed the melody. We've had several of Satz's later songs on my other blog, http://PolishJewishCabaret.com. This was one of his earliest hits.
Leo Yitzhok Satz was born in 1895 in Lemberg, Galicia. His father was a tailor. When he was seven he sang in the children's chorus for the local Polish opera and then, with his father's consent, he started touring in Przemysl. In 1912 he moved to London and married Lili Feinman. At the start of the first World War he moved to America and made a name as an actor and composer. He died in 1944.

Here's the song as pianist Aviva Enoch and I recorded it earlier this week:



This song starts literally with a tailor who hasn't done a good job pressing a garment. In the second verse (which I left out) there is the obligatory undesirable wife. The third verse tells us oppressed workers can vote for the Socialist party and throw out politicans who take bribes, so it's quite topical. (A wonderful word I never heard before, khabar, bribe.) The fourth verse talks about world affairs - if you want the full text get in touch. Words and translation after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, disaster, history, humor, mores, politics, sarcasm, travails, zion

This is a dull melody but the lyrics are vivid.

I found the tune so dull and the accompaniment so boiler-plate I just sang it a capella this morning.




Words and translation after the jump.


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Labels: disaster, history, immigration, New York, politics, travails

This song is transliterated as Zores is kain daige nit and Zores is kain dauge nit and, horrendously in the 1903 edition, Zures is kein dange nit.

The show it's from: the "Professor" Moses Horowitz opera יציאת מצרים (Exodus) is transliterated Yzias Mizrajum and Yzias mizrajim.

I had an edition which said the show was staged in 1920, but it must have been a revival, because the original music was printed in 1903 and Horwitz died in 1910.

On the front cover of the 1921 edition it says the words are by Professor Horowitz and the music is by Perlmutter and Wohl, but inside it says "by Anshel Shor."

There is a third verse but as it is 100% knee-jerk misogyny, I omitted it. If you must sing about wives with big noses and no money, go find the sheet music at the Library of Congress site and sing it yourself.

Here is the version I did today:


Translation and transliteration after the jump.

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Labels: disaster, humor, passover, sarcasm, travails

Let's start off with transcription hell. How something is spelled was less of an issue before Google. But now, if you can't spell it you can't find it.

The dance form here, the kazatzke, was not Jewish in origin. On Youtube you can find Ukrainians and Russians dancing the казачок (Little Cossack) which theoretically would be transcribed Kazachok but is also Kozachok Kozachock Cassatschok Casatschok Kozáček - and they are often dancing to the nationalistic 1938 Soviet "folksong" Катюша (Katyusha Katusha Katjuscha Katiusha Katjusha) - a song which inspired the nickname of the Red Army rocket launchers of World War II.

A characteristic of the dance: those with strong ankles squat low to the ground and kick their feet forward.According to a quick peek at Wikipedia, the dance dates back to the late 16th and 17th century.

Recently Amanda (Miryem-Khaye) Seigel was looking for Jewish versions of this dance and I remembered seeing this offering from the prolific Joseph Rumshisky (later Rumshinsky), published in 1920. It's got its own transliteration problems. In Yiddish on the cover it is דער אידישער קאַזאַק (transliterated as Yudishe kazatzke) while on the lyrics page it is אידישער קאָזאַטשאָק (Yudisher kozachok).

You may think all this talk about transliteration is boring, but you'd be amazed how many people write to me looking for songs which are actually easily findable - but under a different transliteration. Some of the transliterations pass all understanding. Some are just ridiculous typos. You have to be imaginative.

Jeff Warschauer writes:

The melody starts with a popular broyges tants motif. Ruth Rubin also collected alternative lyrics for that broyges tants melody. The lyrics are about a daughter who is too young to go to the khupe.

This is what's sometimes called a macaronic song - it mixes Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew. Here is the lyrics page from the sheet music (click for a larger view):



Musically I felt the sheet music presented a problem. Typically a kozatzke is quicker toward the end, but in this song the second half was considerably slower than the first! There is no archival recording to be found - or maybe there is one but it's hiding under an odd spelling! Provisionally I just decided to double-time the second page. Here's my very hasty recording from a couple days ago:


By the way, in the early 1930s came Tsirele Mirele, one of my favorite songs from the Itzik Zhelonek Yiddish theater songs collection, Aaron Lebedeff coaxes his sweetheart back into a good mood and suggests that she should "dance the kozatske like a boy" ...

Transliteration and translation after the jump.

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Labels: nostalgia

This is my favorite picture of Nellie Casman, born in 1896 in Russia. Her family soon moved to America and she was raised in Philadelphia.

Her Yiddish was not native and she got scolded for it, but when she went to Europe the audiences were so enchanted they forgave her.

This song is transliterated on the sheet music as When ich zol wider kenen sein a kind and on the 78 itself as Wen Ich Zol Vieder Kenen Zain A Kind.

I like the word smotshken (sometimes tsmotshken) which is surely related to the English word "smooch" (dating back to the 1570s perhaps via the German variant schmutzen).

All her best songs are full of Yinglish. This one has the same plot as the famous English song "I Wish They'd Do It Now."

Lyrics and translation after the jump.

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Labels: humor, nostalgia

Sung by Julius Nathanson (Natansohn), this song was from a show by B. Kovner [pseudonym of the humorist Jacob Adler] called "Yente telebende."

The fictional henpecking Yente was married to Mendel Telebende. The Forward writes:

Yente Telebende, known for her loud mouth and meddling ways, even spawned the creation of a new term in the vernacular: a “yente,” meaning a gossip.

... or, as the New York Times described her in Adler's obituary when he died at 101 in 1975, a "loquacious battle‐ax."

The song, written by Isidore Lilian and Joseph Rumshisky (Rumshinsky), was published in 1916 as the B side to a shockingly racist song by Louis Gilrod with the appealing title "Washington, Lincoln und Moishe Rabeiny."

It was in my folder of "songs to record some day" and yesterday was the day. I was experimenting with my Logitech webcam.


I love the Yinglish in this song. "Ikh hob mayn mind gechanged." Sweet.

Here's a cool poster of "Julius Nathanson, Yiddish American comedian, and Anna Nathanson, the personality girl of the Yiddish stage." An obit read: Julius Nathanson, for nearly half a century known on the Yiddish stage as both a character actor and comedian, died at his home at Reseta, Calif., at the age of 66. A native of Kiev, Mr. Nathanson played with Jewish troupes all over this country, Europe and South America."


Words and translation after the jump. I omitted two (to me) offensive verses.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, New York, sarcasm

Yiddish music and literature often refers to the wheel of fortune, and reminds us, for instance, that luck and money are "round" - one day they roll to us, the next day they roll away. This song was published in 1916, words by Louis Gilrod, music by Joseph Rumshisky. Sung in Max Gabel's show "A Girl's Revenge" by the very young Henrietta Jacobson. Spelled "Gotteniu gib a dreh dus redele" on the sheet music.

Max Gabel was born in 1877 in Western Galicia. When he was 11 his father died and he and his mother and sister whent to America. He worked in a factory but also wrote pieces for the Yiddish Theater.

In 1895 Gabel became a professional actor and his work became widely staged. He married Jennie Goldstein when she was only 16. He is credited with having written 120 plays and he died in Los Angeles in 1952.

I could not find a period recording of this song so here is the recording I made this morning:






Lyrics and translation after the jump.

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