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This song was written by Louis Kopelman to the tune of "My Gal is a High Born Lady," and it was sung by Bessie Thomashefsky. The tune has a cakewalk / ragtime feel to it.

Thanks to Ken Bloom (guitar) and Jim Baird (bass) for playing on it! Here's our rendition from a couple days ago:


This is yet another song teaching new immigrants about an essential part of New York: signage for flogging your product. Kopelman wisely points out that advertising can get idiots to buy all sorts of rubbish.

In the second verse we meet up with a butcher who is, as usual, crooked. Butchers were always under suspicion: were they selling treyf beef as kosher and pocketing the premium the pious paid for that precious hekhsher?

Notice in the third verse that matchmakers refered to their bachelors and single ladies as "wares." For more on matchmakers in New York at the turn of the century see GimpelBeynish.com - I translated seven books of a daily comic strip about the travails of Gimpel Beynish der shadkhn.

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.



My Wares

Everyone in New York lives by deceiving
There's no difference between the foolish and the clever.
Each tries to advertise, he surely wants to show you
That everything he has is 50% off.

And you see the fools running with pleasure,
Hurrying to buy bargains.
Because they saw a sign, printed very nicely,
And in big letters it said:

My wares, if you'll just take them,
You won't be sorry
You can show everybody, such wares at such a price!
Just take it all and everybody will wish you happiness.
Bargains like these you see only once in a thousand years!

A scoundrel, an apostate, who sells kosher meat here
Writes on his window: "Properly Pure!"
He writes: the other guy's meat is terrible,
Nothing accepteable comes from crooked butchers,
No Jew should go into their shops.
"Whoever wants to buy exclusively kosher meat
Should come running only to my shop!."
He sells for very little money,
This world or the next.
"Just read my sign carefully!"

A matchmaker, whose entire livelihood is his fees,
Had arguments with everybody.
He shouts all day long:
"You get the best wares only from me."
But nobody comes to him.
Suddenly he comes up with a great plan
And goes to a painter.
And soon near the entrance to his stall
A big sign is standing:

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

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Labels: advertisements, history, sarcasm