Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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This one has been in my to-do folder for years. A delightful collection of lebns-bilder!

I adapted a Sam Zagat cartoon to adorn it: this is from the day in 1916 when he came back to work after having been away from the newspaper for several months. For more of his work see GimpelBeynish.com



There's a lot of Yinglish here and some other interesting words. Couldn't figure out what "weik" (veyk) was. I liked pinke. Paul Wexler in Jewish and non-Jewish Creators of "Jewish Languages" (find it on google books) says pinke is, in Czech and Hungarian, "a box for money paid by cardplayers to the innkeeper" and that it stems from Judeo-Aramaic and perhaps Greek before that. Evidently the landlady was profiting by her association with her connected boarder until he cleaned her out.



I only recorded five of the seven verses but you can see them all after the jump.






My first boarder, Rosen, was a blowhard.
For three dollars, tea and coffee, I washed his clothes and on top of that:
He broke the spring in my sofa.
He was a big eater, for him no ? nothing kosher.
He used to sneak into the booze...
He wanted me to make him kremslekh and kreplekh.
He had a hankering for everything.

Listen, women, get this in your heads, take advice from me.
If you want to live well and peacefully
Don't let any boarders into your house.

My second boarder, Kraser, was a Yiddish author.
He used to write, he used to erase,
He used to be after me all day to hang out in his room with him, alone.
He used to make me sit and listen to his skits,
He performed scenes from life for me.
Once my wild husband knocked out all his teeth.

My third boarder Breyver, may he rest in peace,
He used to ? be busy when my husband used to come in.
He didn't want to suffer.
He used to boss me around as if I were his slave
He considered himself a bigshot, he was a pig/scoundrel!
He didn't pay rent for three months!

My fourth boarder Traybl had a wife, she used to come shouting and cursing,
Berating us and turning things upside down
Because we'd robbed her of her happiness
Such a chatterbox causing an uproar
She implied to my husband the boarder was my love
And my genius believed her!

My fifth boarder Beygl was a great guy, a sly one,
He made of my respectable home a gambling house.
Card players were not in short supply!
I had money, and lots of dubiously legal stuff.
One day he disappeared, may he have miseries and wounds,
He stole my jewelry and money!

My sixth boarder, Spekter, was an actor.
What a pest! He slept till past noon,
I couldn't clean the house.
And when he'd wake up, he used to rehearse:
Crying, shouting, shrieking, singing,
My ears were ringing.
And he paid his rent with theater passes.

My last boarder Reyner was handsome,
He had a sweet smile and was very smart.
He esteemed me, he doted on my every step.
He used to simple inhale my cooking, my baking,
But he didn't stay for long...
My disaster of a husband drove him out
And wouldn't allow any more boarders.

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

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Labels: battle between the sexes, food, humor, immigration, love, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, New York, sarcasm, travails