Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
Index of songs on this site
Youtube: all the Penny Songs I've recorded so far (with subtitles)
About this project ♦ ♦ About Jane Peppler
List of the still-lost songs: do you know any of them?
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UPDATE: I finished my Gimpl Beinish book, see Gimpel Beynish the Matchmaker: Samuel Zagat's Yiddish Comic Strips 1912-1914 for the details.

The song Isch Ga-bibble (I Should Worry) came out in 1913 (see right). It supposedly was fake Yiddish. A trumpet player took this as his stage name, for more about the saying and the player see Ish Kabibble

I thought it was interesting to find the expression, transliterated into Yiddish, in the last panel of this Gimpel Beynisch Matchmaker comic strip (click the strip for a larger view), in the thought bubble. The guy saying "Ish Ka Bibble" had warned Gimpl that the dad was an angry guy and he was on the way, so after Gimpl gets beat up the guy is Mr I-Told-You-So:



November 24, 1913: Nevertheless it's a little strange that the father of a grown girl should hate a matchmaker.
1) Moyshe Motl: Say, Gimpl, leave her alone. Her father is coming. He's a bitter guy.
2) GB: Go to hell, you wastrel. I'm a matchmaker, I can talk to her.
3) Moyshe Motl: Looks like Gimpl Beynish should be saying his prayers. See how he's running, so furious.
4) Her Father: That's how it is, old clown? You bother my daughter, in the middle of the street yet?
5) [Guy slightingly says "ish kabibble"] GB: You set him on me, you thief, you snitch. Wait - I'll have you arrested.

It's much more charming in Yiddish but that's the way of things.