Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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Always the same becomes boring
To sing with the melody from the English song IDAHO!
by Louis Gilrod



Here is a song title nobody would ever use any more, Whoah IDA-HO! Whoah. It's evidently capitalizing on some wild-west theme. Here is the rather naughty beginning of the chorus:

Ida-ho, whoa!
Don't go so fast, dear
My horse won't last, dear,
So please go slow.

I did a little digging on the composer and discovered his original name was Arie Gumbinsky and his parents were married by a rabbi in Detroit. You can read what I put together here: Harry Von Tilzer. His life is a case study in obliterating a Jewish heritage via artful obfuscations.

He's written loads of the songs on this blog. His half-brother Albert wrote "Take Me Out To The Ball Game."

Louis Gilrod is in his usual period-appropriate misogynist, cynical form here with the parody. I cobbled the piano part together by myself and recorded the song yesterday (just the 2nd and 3rd verses):


Some infrequently used Daytshmerisms in this song like nie (never) and imertsu - immerzu (always)

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.





The same thing all the time gets boring

Dear friends I tell you: always the same thing gets
boring and tedious
Therefore I've provided myself now with a new and
pretty little song
Take the trouble to hear me out
I've noticed, I tell you freely, that everything new
is inherently interesting
And it's worth it to sing new songs all the time and
thereby achieve success

Because the same thing all the time gets boring -
even tsimmes
It's never going to suit you
So I run and crawl and seek only what's new
Because always the same, that's tedious.

2
I run into my neighbor late at night
Walking in the street, very distracted
I stop him and say hello
He stands there, surprised
He soon understood what I was thinking.
"It's business, you know," he says.
"Understand," says my neighbor,
My wife is, thank the Lord, dangerously sick this
week
If only this state of affairs can continue!
Even if she were able to cook, I'd also be thankful
Because I'm tired of her food, I long for something
fresh

Because the same thing all the time gets boring -
even tsimmes
It never does the trick
So I'm going now to find something new
The same thing all the time, that's tedious

3
I lived at a boarding house
I was happy with my landlady, good health to her,
The same chickens, the same wine,
Just the same that she gives her husband,
She used to give me.
But alas, I had to move
Because she wouldn't even let me sleep at night.
She'd snore like an automobile
Her husband asked why I was moving, I answered:

The same thing all the time gets boring - even
tsimmes
It never does the trick
So I'm moving now and looking for a new landlady
Because the same thing all the time, that's tedious

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

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