Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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This one was such a pleasure. Louis Gilrod, one of the two most prolific parodists featured in Lider magazin, wrote a classic workers' anthem, stirring, furious, bitter, to the cheerful tune of a frivolous WASPy classic.

Here's our recording from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, with Randy Kloko on vocals with me and Glenn Mehrbach on keyboard:


A lot of people have told me they're surprised that "Give My Regards To Broadway" was published in 1904 - they thought it was a song from a generation or two later. Also, people only recognize the chorus, the verse has not survived in popular memory.

In Yiddish shleser usually just means locks, but in German it also means castles, and Gilrod used both meanings very cleverly in this lyric, also the idea of people being locked up and locked out.

The song rings true in our current age when robber barons are flourishing and workers are oppressed. One sad difference between now and 115 years ago is that the service industry is almost all that's left in America: after decades of decline our country's industry, home industries, the trades, the labor unions, all have fallen on hard times. Who is standing up for workers now?

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.






Tear Down The Locks (Tear Down the Castles)


Workers from all lands, all together, unite!
It's time already to wake up and make an end of 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, workers, yiddish ragtime