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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I love this workers' song, it's a valuable addition to the canon of labor movement songs. We recorded it for our Yiddish Ragtime cd. Here's the top of the song as printed in Lider magazin:



Here's our youtube video with the lyrics:




The song referenced, "All Aboard for Broadway," was hard to find. I had to search a long time. Finally, somebody on the Vaudeville Facebook group dug up a pixelated scan of a faded old copy of the music. I stupidly retyped the whole thing into Sibelius before checking to see if it was the right song. Nope. Next time, check first.

I couldn't shoehorn Louis Gilroad's Yiddish lyric into "All Aboard for Broadway" - when this happens I take the glass slipper in hand and go searching around to find which  foot is a fit.

I'd noticed the composer George M. Cohan wrote about 15 songs with the word "Broadway" in the title and I was ready to try them all. "Might as well start with the most famous one," I thought, and bingo, it fit, the search was over.

Lots of people know the chorus of "Give My Regards To Broadway" but the verse is unfamiliar.

Randy Kloko pointed out to me that shleser means castles as well as locks, so this song can also be translated as "Tear Down the Castles." Images of locks and castles appear throughout the song.

Transliterated Yiddish and translation after the jump.





Tear Down the Locks

Workers from all lands, all together, unite!
It's time already to wake up and make an end
to slavery in every land.
Treasures and rich palaces, with the richest food and wine.
And what's better, the door is locked
and they don't let us in.

Tear down the locks, worker, take what's owed you.
You created the treasures, the palaces are for you.
Smash the leeches who've always tormented and sucked at you.
Tear down the locks and raise up the red flag.

When the father has no work
and the mother is sick and fainting,
When day and night the little children lament and cry
for a bit of bread,
When the bank is packed with millions,
stuffed with diamonds everywhere
And the cashbox is locked against the working class
with a lock called "capital."


The rich rob millions and go around free and comfortable.
And the poor man, when from desperation
he steals a bit of bread, they lock him in prison.
The boss travels to the country in the summer,
he amuses himself and lives it up.
And the worker must sit and sweat blood,
locked in the shop day and night.

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

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Labels: history, labor union, politics, union, workers