Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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This is a very famous waltz, by our own Harry Von Tilzer aka Arie Gumbinsky. The original beats a Victorian dead horse: the beautiful young woman who sells her self out by marrying a rich old man (still happens of course). The first verse of the Solomon Small parody is on that same theme, but he pivots to workers' issues in verse 2 (where we see a cashier in a high-priced department store, surrounded by luxury and hands full of the customers' money, none of it hers) and in verse 3 (where in a world full of natural riches millionaires are sticking it to the workers).

Here's my living room version from today, with the wonderful guitar and bass tracks sent to me by Jim Baird, thanks Jim!

Here are two of the sheet music covers, and an illustration by John Held. Transliteration of the Yiddish and translation after the jump.

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The ball is shining and beautiful, the richest people are there
The hostess is esteemed by everyone, you'd search long to find an equal to her beauty (die Wirtin)
With pearls, diamonds from head to toe, the best there is to be had,
Her smile, so youthful and dear, is sweet when she comes in on the arm of her old husband
So of course, she's a bird in a golden cage, because happiness doesn't lie in gold.
The bird wishes for a tree, a branch; the woman, a lover's glance.
She's completely isolated in her rich house
She suffers and sighs.
In her heart the misery is deep and immense
Like a bird in a golden cage

You enter a store, a big business, magnificently rich,
You meet up with hundreds of people there, you notice the cashier too.
A room decked out as in a fine home, she sits and doesn't have to do anything
And all the money the store brings in goes into her hand.
Yes, she's a bird in a golden cate, there's nothing to envy.
She's a branch of the tree of poverty and knows only deprivation and pain.
Her sick family lies back home, she suffers in silence
In her heart the misery is deep and immense
Like a bird in a golden cage

The earth is fine and rich with everything, and it's good everywhere.
She gives her products for everyone alike, we can draw upon them as from a spring.
She gives us life, she gives us strength, she doesn't ask us for any payment.
We extract her juice, we also make money from her.
So we are birds in a golden cage,
A magnate's playthings.
He takes everything and gives us the finger,
And he makes this behavior just and normal.
We slave away, we build everything for him,
We suffer in silence,
And in our hearts the misery is deep and immense,
Like a bird in a golden cage.

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

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