Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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This is the first song I'm posting since the end of a busy summer - one of the highlights was getting to present these penny songs at the Workmens Circle "Trip to Yiddishland" where I met a woman who actually remembered her uncle banging happily on the table while he sang Steam.

Farges nit kadish zogn is to be sung to the melody of a quite popular song from 1906, Shenkt a nedoveh, composed by Perlmutter & Wohl.

To hear the recording Roger and I did for Farges nisht kadesh zogn yesterday click this image:



By the way, there is different song also called Shenkt a nedove on the LOC site, and also by the way, on the cover here the title is transliterated Schenkt a neduwe but on the first page  the title is spelled Schenkt a ne du we.

My friend Roger Lynn Spears kindly played the piano part for me. You can hear his part again on a second song Morris Rund wrote to the same tune: Di korbones fun der shif titanik.

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump:



On the great, wide sea a ship flies swiftly
There a woman and her child are traveling to her husband
But suddenly, oy vey, that same day a catastrophe is upon them,
The mother dies suddenly on the way, the child is orphaned on the ship
The kind screams "Mommy!" it tears your heart
People console him, crying and lamenting
"You are an orphan, your heartache is immense,
Don't forget to say kaddish!"

"Say kaddish now, tear your garments quickly,
You're now an orphan, left desolate and destitute,
Terrible Death took your mother."

The child arrives and he must seek bread
He takes to his work quickly and forgets his mother's death
Time passes, the child doesn't think about it,
His father comes to him with cries and laments
"The anniversary of your mother's death is tonight,
Don't forget, my child, to go say kaddish.
A year ago you were with her traveling on the ship to me.
Now light a candle in honor of your mother
You are an orphan, you don't have a mother any more."

The father sits crying and lamenting
His child is going to get married.
He takes him to the chuppah today
And his mother's absence is felt.
The friends come, music plays, every heart is happy,
They go to the chuppah, they are wished happiness,
But nobody senses the orphan's heartache.
He chants the funeral prayer now
"Oy, my mother is dead," he cries,
"Sob and cry, each of you people,
Now my mother is not standing by the chuppah."

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

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Labels: disaster, immigration, mother, travails, wedding