Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
Index of songs on this site
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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  Here's our recording of Cheap! from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, with Randy Kloko singing, me on fiddle and Glenn Mehrbach on keyboard:



The melody for this parody by Louis Gilrod is taken from "Gone, Gone, Gone," a ragtime song by T. J. Farron, Jr and Joseph M. Hollander. The song was sung by Russell & Locke:



It was about a man who lost his sweetheart, she was gone gone gone. Louis Gilrod turned this to a song about saving money. It mentions venereal disease more explicitly than any other song of the era. Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.





Cheap

Everyone knows that in this land there's lots of business. The minute you have a bit of understanding, you very easily become a businessman. Hear what I say: if you want to be rich, follow my advice straight away. Put your whole stock of miseries in a sack and shout: "Misery, cheap! Five sents a pack!"

Cheap, a lot to sell with little profit, that doesn't ever bother any businessman. If you obey me, you'll quickly become very rich, richer than me. The minute you get the grippe, then sell it cheap!

I know a boy who is very stingy, from seven dollars he can save eight. I know for sure he has a terrible bellyache, may it not happen to you. He says: "A wife is a curse in life. You can pass the time with ... ladies ... very cheaply." Until, praise God, he became very sick. Now he goes to the drugstore and buys a sort of drink...

That costs cheap. The minute he has a quarter in his pocket, he runs right off to buy a flask of medicine. A pain in the ribs, a pang in his heart. He got the sickness cheap. A redheaded girl infected him, sent him to the grave. Cheap.

I myself care nothing for money, I sometimes spend a nickel a day. And when a girl pleases me, then I spend on her, one misfortune after another. Hear my misfortune, I recently got married, now I lament again. She eats and quaffs with gusto, she runs off to Coney Island. If I had a customer I'd sell her...

Cheap. She is a bargain, tall and healthy! She gobbles food like a giant and works like a child. Since she became mine, I don't know how, but my money is just flowing away, curse her. I give you my hand: I'll sell her for twelve cents. Cheap, cheap, cheap.

I give you both my hands: I'll sell her for twelve cents.
Cheap, cheap, cheap.

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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, male chauvinism, yiddish ragtime