Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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I'm not recording this one because

• I've already posted two recordings with this melody (Gots vunder itself and the lovely parody by Isaac Reingold, Mayn vaybs vunder);
  
• This one is eight verses long, that's too much;
  
• The verses don't fit the melody very well. If you are interested in singing the song you'll just have to fiddle with it. I think some lines got left out by accident.

The title page here (click for a larger view) says:
This is the second song I've worked with that mentions khay vekayem, the first was Di Naye Al Chet - a super great song by the way. In that song we see: Der kop bay reb khayem shrayt khay vekayem. In this song, the chorus ends with the phrase. Here is what Michael Wex has to say:

Right after the cantor recites a passage in which humanity is described as a broken pot, a passing shadow and a dream that flies away, everybody yells out Ve-ato hu melekh keyl khay ve-kayem, But You [God] are the king, a living and existing God,” ... In idiomatic Yiddish, gey shray khay ve-kayem means, “shout your head off, protest in vain.”

 This song plays on both meanings. Here's my translation, with the transliteration following. If you ever decide to sing this song, send me a link and I'll post it.

How the bosses oppress the workers

My world is dark and bitter, my luck is bad
I can't go home again. My luck didn't serve me any longer.
I'm lonely as a stone
Woe is me, and in addition, I've used up my money and my strength
With the endless voyage.
Oy, it's a predestined sentence,
It doesn't help to cry to the heavens

What do you say, Jews, to our luck?
That we haven't found anything better?
We haven't thought about any goal
We run away from our homes
It's constricting in Russia, the edicts are harsh,
Nobody has any counsel to give
Suddenly countless people think to fly off to America
There one finds a new catastrophe
And it doesn't help to cry to the heavens.

Where is the good luck we imagined when we were still living back home?
We were happy, rejoicing, how happy we would be in the new place
There'd be work, businesses would prosper,
When God brought us to that land
Now we see it's just the opposite:
It's a big disgrace for us.
All one hears in the land is “a terrible time”
And it doesn't help to cry to the heavens

Genteel folks from rich families,
Who scorned everything
Now they seize upon any trades
And they're told to wait, humiliated
They wander around everywhere in the streets
Exhausted from hunger
They curse the person who discovered how to get here.
America, who thought it up!?
Every day one seeks a new plan
And it doesn't help to cry to the heavens.

In Russia, you can't earn now
Credit has dried up since people have been rushing to America
Nobody will trust you for the money
Each one leaves his wife and children
And does as much backbreaking work as he can.
They stay behind, naked and uncovered
And have to sell the house
In short, he becomes a poor man
Oy, he traveled so far just to discover a new poverty
There he'll be shouting uselessly to the heavens

And as he takes up the hardest trade
And earns money little by little
He has to watch over the boss
See that he doesn't keel over and die
When the time comes the boss doesn't pay him
But says: “I'll pay you tomorrow” ...
Then one sits without bread and wishes for death
But the dead boss isn't worrying about anything
Oy, now you have to find a new boss, and as for getting the money,
It doesn't help to cry to the heavens.

And when you find a new boss you have to ask carefully:
Does he love to drink? Does he have money?
Is he too humble? Does he work alone?
Is his wife an uppity witch?
And if he is perhaps lazy and has a big mouth
Let him be the one to suffer
Oh, may the Lord above protect us from such bosses
So we don't have to cry uselessly to the heavens.

Cry and shout, all you Jews, all you workers in the land,
We should be allowed a bit of happiness
We should not be brought to disgrace
We should become rich as all the other nations
No great rages should be visited upon us
We should no longer be so small
We should have our kingdoms
Let us pray to the Lord above,
Everyone shout: "You are the king!"

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

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Labels: disaster, history, immigration, labor union, mores, New York, politics, travails, union