Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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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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Click for a larger view of the sheet music cover. There were 11 musical numbers in this folio, a few of the others were also printed on broadsides and appear in the American Yiddish Penny Songs collection, this must have been a popular show. Words by Abraham Goldfaden, music by Louis Friedsell and Simon Mogulesco. It was Goldfaden's last show, mounted in 1908; he died that same year. It was somewhat based on George Eliot's novel Daniel Deronda. The sheet music is here: Goldfaden's Ben-Ami.

Spellings include: Das Jusemil; Yusemil; Dus yussemil. The broadside has Der Yoseml.

Simon Paskal seems to have recorded this song two or three times. It's a cool tune. Click to listen at youtube:



Here's the broadside, click for a larger view.


This lyric is kind of impressionistic, it didn't make a lot of sense to me but here's the gist as I understand it, I'd be happy to have somebody do a better job:

It was just yesterday I was having such a good time
When mother asked for me, father kissed and caressed me, his only child,
In the morning I'm in shul. "Where am I?" I ask as if I'm crazy.
The beadle whispers quietly to me, "Say kaddish now, little orphan."

My father, oh woe is me, my mother, oh woe is me,
I won't see them an more, I'm a lone orphan

You children of poor and rich fathers and mothers who love you,
They suffer a lot for you,
So you should value them highly,
You can buy gold and pearls, the most expensive diamonds,
You can also buy a friend
But you can't buy parents

Ben Ami's father lived for his child, he strove
If he had lived to see his child playing
The happiness made him weake
It brought his soul to God
His name like starlight
"Ben Ami" cried with laments
My father, oy, woe is me,
he is with God, oh woe is me,
I won't see him,
I don't have him,
I'm a lone orphan

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For sheet music and/or performances contact me: jane@mappamundi.com

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Labels: disaster, mother, travails