Researching Yiddish penny songs (tenement song broadsides of theater and variety show songs, 1895-1925)
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List of the still-lost songs: do you know any of them?
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UPDATE: The lyrics for two verses of this song were found in Solomon Small's own magazine of (primarily his own) Yiddish theater song lyrics, but it took a while to find the melody (on the recording you'll find below, which I bought on eBay). Updating because four years ago I had somehow mislaid my own version so today when I wanted to write it up for my "Yiddish pour tous" series, I had to sing it over again.

Also, Mordkhe Miller and Ri Turner helped me figure out the words to the third verse. I guess it was a little too risque to be printed on the sheet music. The music teacher and his beautiful student work on the piano, the verb is tsimblen which means play the cimbalom, strike the cymbals; make a racket, play boisterous music; thrash, beat and it sometimes is used for people beating on each other and it also is a rough synonym for banging, which would have been the cruder translation. Anyway, here's my recording from this morning:

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And also to point out this song has the same "nudge nudge wink wink" theme as a song I posted in December: Dos iberike farshteyt aleyn (and the rest, you understand).

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Now back to the real thing: I found the Smulewitz record on ebay. What a great orchestra! The song is by Arnold Perlmutter and Herman Wohl with words by Louis Gilrod. The singer is composer and performer Solomon Small (originally Solomon Smulewitz) but the song was originally out in 1909 featuring Bessie Thomashefsky - it's from Boris Thomashefsky's show Dos pintele yid (or as it says on the sheet music Das pintele yud). You'll find it spelled Shtoist sich on or Shtoist zikh on. I love this recording!


I'm sad the third verse (about, I assume, a lecherous piano teacher) is not printed in the sheet music. If anybody wants to figure it out I'd be grateful. Email me if you do.

The YIVO transliteration of the Yiddish and my translation after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, New York, sarcasm

UPDATE: In Lider magazin I found another Yiddish text written to this melody. Ikh hob moyre tsu shlofn aleyn, by Louis Gilrod. Click for a larger view.

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The specified melody was "I'm Afraid to Come Home in the Dark," a very annoying song from 1908 you can hear sung by May Irwin at Youtube. The words were by Harry Williams and the tune is by Egbert Van Alstyne.

The Yiddish words were written by Hyman Altman who wrote quite a few of the songs in the American Yiddish Penny Song collection.

Click the youtube button below to hear the recording I made today in my living room of Altman's version. I left out the middle verse but you can find it below.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, mores, sarcasm, travails, workers

Here's our recording of Der man mit der nodl un di sher from the cd Yiddish Ragtime, Randy Kloko sang with me and Glenn Mehrbach is on keyboard:



This song is not from Lider magazin, I found it in the composer's own annual, Der teater zinger. I had the text for a long time and didn't think I'd be able to find the melody, but Eleanore Biezunski and Lorin Sklamberg at YIVO found me a recording of Solomon Smulewitz himself singing it. Thanks!

Although Smulewitz did not credit his source, I discovered that the verse for this song is taken from an American song, Good Bye Little Girl Good Bye by Gus Edwards (original lyrics by Will D. Cobb) published in 1904. (I don't know what war that soldier on the cover was going off to fight.)

Its somewhat martial theme fit this workers' anthem - for the hero of the tailoring trade and the nascent Garments' Union - very well. The chorus is not from the Edwards song; perhaps Smulewitz wrote it himself, or maybe he stole it from elsewhere. As often in these early labor songs, "The Red Flag" - the symbol of Communism - was seen as the solution to their woes. We discovered that wasn't the answer, but what can sustain us against the Robber Barons of our own era?

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.


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Labels: history, labor union, mores, politics, union, war

The Band Played on, by Charles B. Ward and John F. Palmer, was one of the big successes on Tin Pan Alley, so of course it was parodied for the Jewish music publishing world. Isaac Reingold, who has featured often in this blog, was one of the two most prolific parodists (the other being Louis Gilrod).

This is an astonishing lyric. In the first verse, we get a sweet and detailed scene from young Genendl's life, when she leaves her preparations for the Sabbath behind in order to go dancing. In the second verse, Genendl and her fiance are at their wedding reception longing for everybody else to leave so they could be alone together. And in the third verse, the husband murders her for going on a picnic with the boarder.

Here's our take on it, from the Yiddish Ragtime cd. Randy Kloko sang with me and Glenn Mehrbach played the keyboard.



Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, food, humor, male chauvinism, marriage, mores, sabbath, yiddish ragtime

UPDATE: In March I wondered if this song were lost forever. It's a wonderful Yiddish take on "If You Ain't Got That Do-Re-Mi" !

Happily Lorin Sklamberg and Eléonore Biezunski at the YIVO Sound Archive found a recording of Solomon Smulewitz singing this song, his own composition, and I liked it so much we put it on our Yiddish Ragtime album even though it has nothing in common with the other songs. It is the only natively Yiddish composition on the disk.




דיא מטבעה
I originally found it in the Solomon Smulewitz publication Der teater zinger דער טעאַטער  זינגער

Click the image for a larger view.

It says at the top of the page, Gezungen fun Mr Katzman un fun Madam Raynhart.
געזונגען פֿון מר. קאַטזמאַן און פֿון מאַדאַם רײנהאַרט

Perhaps these are Jacob Katzman and Fannie Reinhart.

I love everything about this song, from its snide and discouraging tone to its dark advice and its interesting, long tune. But my favorite part is the Question-and-Answer period. When I recorded it with Randy Kloko I said: let's have those answers sound like they came from on high via the Magic Eight Ball.


Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, love, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, sarcasm

UPDATE: Replaced video with the track from our new cd Yiddish Ragtime


Today's song is Nit ales iz gold vos shaynt, which is most obviously translated as "All that glitters is not gold," as Shakespeare said. But there's word play in the Yiddish title - the verb shaynen does means to shine, but it also means to seem or to appear to be. So literally this would be "Not everything is gold that shines" AND "Not everything is gold that appears to be gold."

The parody was written by Isaac Reingold, who's authored many of the lyrics featured here. You'll find him lauded online as the "Bard of the West" - he lived in Chicago when he came over from Europe. He worked in sweatshops, wrote songs, drank too much, and died in 1903 at the age of 30. I think the world broke his heart.

He set his bitter text to the American popular song "Johnny, My Old Friend John," published in 1894. The composer and lyricist was William Courtright, and in his six verses he reminds his friend of times gone by. Eventually we realize that the two friends went off to war but while the narrator made it back, Johnny now is lying somewhere under the snow.

Randy Kloko sings with me on the choruses and Jack Herrick generously emailed me a guitar track when I wailed to him that my piano playing is so deadly boring and elementary even I can't stand to listen to it. Thanks Jack!

Translation and transliteration after the jump.

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Labels: immigration, morality, mores, religion

The original song, Ain't Dat A Shame, published in 1901 by John Queen and Walter Wilson, was probably inspired by Frankie Baker, who in 1899 shot her man for going to a dance with another woman. She became the star of "Frankie and Johnny" and there are strains of the famous melody within this one. (In Ain't Dat A Shame, though, the philandering man thinks better of it and goes home, only to find she's locked the door, so nobody dies.)

The Yiddish parody written by Louis Gilrod probably began as just the title, which fit so nicely against the English language original. In the first verse a woman sends her suitor home; in the second verse a wife sends her gambling husband home; in the third verse a boarder sends his lovelorn landlady home.

Barb Coffman played the keyboard and Randy Kloko joined me on this song for our album Yiddish Ragtime

Here's our recording:


Transliteration and translation after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, mores, sarcasm, travails, wedding, yiddish ragtime

UPDATE: Reposting because of a conversation this past weekend in Chicago, where I had a little residency presenting the Yiddish Penny Songs to a rowdy congregation, Workmens Circle Chicago, and YIVO Chicago.

My host pointed out a cynical view of this song which I had never considered: the text says that after the anti-semites have come ravaging through, ripping everything to shreds and destroying everything we have --  even the tallit -- the mezuzah is still there to protect us. "What kind of protection is it providing," he asked rhetorically, "if it allowed all that ravaging to happen in the first place, and everything is destroyed?"

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Click for a larger view of this lovely sheet music.

I bet this song was written in response to the popularity of "Dos talesl" At first I hated the tune but then I gave it the English country dance treatment and now I like it.

Hyman Altman was the composer / performer of quite a few of the American Yiddish Penny Songs, put his name in the search box to find them.

So here is me on vocals, piano, and four somewhat out of tune fiddle overdubs.


For students: don't be perplexed as I was. Di mezuze is feminine, but the diminutive, dos mezuzele, is neutral. I read carelessly and my mind became snarled.

The letter shin appears on mezuzot and stands for Shaddai, one of the more warlike expressions of the Almighty. As an acrostic its three letters (shin, dalet, and yod) stand for shomer (watching), daltot (doors), Yisra’el - watching the doors of Israel. Hence the role of the mezuzah in guarding the door of the Jewish home. [I don't know why the yod does not appear at the end of the word Shaddai on the lyric sheet!]

Text and translation after the jump.

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Labels: anti-semitism, disaster, history, mores, nostalgia, politics, religion, travails, zionism

The strange name of this cd comes from one of my favorite Yiddish theater songs ever, written by Nellie Casman: Mr Malekh haMoves ikh bin busy! (Mr Angel of Death, I'm busy) in which she, a young and rising star, gets so sick she DOESN'T GO TO WORK (ie she is sick unto death because nothing kept those troupers from the stage) and subsequently tries to convince the Angel of Death she simply has too much to do to die. It's the title track of this cd, Ikh bin busy.

Only $7 and comes with a 19-page pdf file of the complete Yiddish lyrics in transliteration and my translations.

I also put two songs on this cd that I wrote as entries to the 2015 International Yidisher Idol competition in Mexico City. I won first prize with Ikh ken shoyn nit mithaltn, I was Grand Champion that year!

Click on the picture to visit the cd and have a listen.


Contents:

1. Mr Malekh haMoves ikh bin busy (Mr Angel of Death, I'm Busy) 04:58
2. Tsores iz keyn dayge nit (Trouble's Nothing to Worry About) 02:43
3. S'vet zikh shoyn oyspresn (It'll Iron Itself Out) 03:20
4. Ikh bin arayngegangen un zikh oysgedreyt (I Went In And Turned Right Around and Left) 03:02
5. Gotenyu, gib a drey dos redele (God, Turn the Wheel of Fortune) 02:33
6. Dem milshteyns faygn (The Millstone's Figs) 03:21
7. Yeder eyner straykt atsind (Everyone's On Strike Now) 02:55
8. Kompani (Company) 02:06
9. Men vet dir keyn sakh nit mitgebn in keyver arayn (You Can't Take Anything With You Into the Grave) 03:48
10. Az du kenst nit un veyst nit nemt men zikh nit unter (If You Don't Know How, Don't Try It) 02:53
11. Aza mazl afn Keyser (The Czar Should Have Such Luck) 03:50
12. Dos pastukhl (The Shepherd) from Bar Kokhba 04:17
13. Ikh ken shoyn nit mithaltn (I Can't Keep Up) 03:43

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

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Labels: history, humor, immigration, marriage, mores, New York, nostalgia, politics, religion, World War I

This song is transliterated at the Florida Atlantic University website as S'Vet Zich Shoin Auspressen, translated "It Will Be Ironed By Itself." The sheet music has 'Svet sich shon auspresin' on the cover and 'S'wet sach shoin aus presin' on the first page. It was the hit of the 1919 play by Zalmon Libin, "Dem Schneiders Techter" (Dem shnayders tekhter) (The tailor's daughters) performed in Joseph Edelstein's Second Avenue Theater.

Libin (right) was born in 1872 in Imperial Russia, his birth name was Yisrael-Zalman Hurvits. He emigrated to England in 1891 and worked as a furrier. 6 months later he left for America. He wrote short stories and plays and was sometimes called "The O. Henry of the East Side" One of his pieces, Gebrokhene Hertzer (Broken Hearts) written in 1903 was filmed in 1926, starring Maurice Schwartz.


The star, Ludwig Satz, wrote the words of the songs. Joseph Rumshinsky claimed the melody. We've had several of Satz's later songs on my other blog, http://PolishJewishCabaret.com. This was one of his earliest hits.
Leo Yitzhok Satz was born in 1895 in Lemberg, Galicia. His father was a tailor. When he was seven he sang in the children's chorus for the local Polish opera and then, with his father's consent, he started touring in Przemysl. In 1912 he moved to London and married Lili Feinman. At the start of the first World War he moved to America and made a name as an actor and composer. He died in 1944.

Here's the song as pianist Aviva Enoch and I recorded it earlier this week:



This song starts literally with a tailor who hasn't done a good job pressing a garment. In the second verse (which I left out) there is the obligatory undesirable wife. The third verse tells us oppressed workers can vote for the Socialist party and throw out politicans who take bribes, so it's quite topical. (A wonderful word I never heard before, khabar, bribe.) The fourth verse talks about world affairs - if you want the full text get in touch. Words and translation after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, disaster, history, humor, mores, politics, sarcasm, travails, zion

Feast your eyes on the dishy singer William Schwartz. You can read about him at a post about one of his other songs: Oy oy di vayber. He's also the singer of Hit aykh, meydlekh!.

AKA Mein Weib is in der Country Huray! and Mein Weib is in der Country Hurray!

For decades this trope: working men sent their families out to "the country" (perhaps the Catskills) ostensibly for the healthier air and curative life - while they gloated to be at home on the Lower East Side without their wives to hold them back from favorite ... pursuits. The other side of this was men fearing the wives out in the country were having ... too good a time. Sometimes coming home pregnant.

Two more songs on this subject are Gevald di mantens (1923, Adolph King) and Mayn vayb kumt fun Zakopane (1929, a local favorite in Warsaw Poland)

So, this song: The first delight is the tune, a combination of a cake-walk and a march.

The second delight is the multitude of Yinglish words to wallow in, just feast your eyes on them after the jump!

Best of all is this: "Tsu hobn a vayb, dos iz der grester misteyk, ikh leb atsinder punkt vi Got in Passaic."

The original phrase (which I discussed here: In Odess) was: Men lebt vi Got in Odess, that is, "one lives as God lives in Odessa." It was used to describe a place where unbelievers and those intent on licentious behavior can cavort freely because God is paying no attention - and he's paying no attention because he's on holiday among them, and he's chosen Odessa as his dream destination because nobody will bother him there.

Here, Isidore Lillian has deemed Passaic, New Jersey to be the New World's Odessa. Hahahahaha.

(If my interpretation is wrong I'm sure somebody will correct me.)


Without further ado, have a listen!



This kind of awful (but wonderful to listen to) song came from the show of the same name by Joseph Rumshinsky (Rumshisky) and Boris Thomashefsky, at the National Theatre. The sheet music was published in 1918 and shows that Isidor Lillian wrote the words and Thomashefsky sang the song in the show with Kalman Juvelier. I couldn't find a recording of their duet. Words (transliteration from the Yiddish and translation) after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, holidays, humor, love, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, New York

(Click for an enlargement)

The music you see here was published in 1917 as Malle vus men redt auf dem stoop and it was recorded by Anna Hoffman in 1918. Words and music by Louis Friedsell.

I have long confused the word male with meyle. Male, used before an interrogative word, means "who cares, go figure, there’s no telling." Male vos er zogt means "pay no attention to what he says!" So this song title could also be translated, "Pay no attention to what they say on the stoop." What a song of the Lower East Side this is!

My aunt lived in a studio apartment in Manhattan for decades and she often talked about life lived out on the front stoop (even into the 1980s she didn't have an air conditioner). She spoke approvingly of "stoop babies" - infants who were so used to being passed from hand to hand among neighbors sitting out on the stoops together that they didn't care whose arms they were in. It makes me nostalgic just thinking about it.

So here is Anna Hoffman:

Transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, history, humor, morality, mores, New York, nostalgia

It seems there was a song like this in most Yiddish operettas, a song in which the rich man is warned he will get his comeuppance. I think the Yiddish theater audience was mostly poor people and they wanted to think there would be justice ... eventually.

The song is from the show Malke Shvo (The Queen of Sheba) by Shundmeister Hurwitz, it came out in 1907 and the music was published in 1913. The original singer was Madame Shapiro. The words are by Anshel Shor, the music is by Joseph Brody.

I put an original recording sung by Sam Stern on Youtube: Men vet dir keinsach nit mit geben in keivir arein ...

... it's also transcribed as Men wet dir nit mitgeben in keiver, Men Wet Dir Kein Sach nit mitgeben in Kever arein, and Men Vet Dir Kein Sach Nit Mit Geben In Keiver Arein ...

... Sam sang only the first verse, and because it is a fun song, and it's almost Halloween, I decided to record it myself this morning with both verses. Here it is:


While I was singing it I was thinking about one who will not be named, but who is a

שאַנד און שמאַך

SHAME AND DISGRACE UPON OUR COUNTRY
Transliteration and translation after the jump.

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Labels: morality, mores, religion, workers

Transliterated as Hit eich and Hit aich meidelach (Girls beware), the song was published in 1922. Music Sholom Secunda, lyrics Anshel Shorr, who wrote the show it was from: An oyg far an oyg (An Eye for an Eye).

As usual, a girl who does not stay home quietly obeying her mother ends up in the hospital. The wages of sin...

In the show, Dora Weissman sang the song, but on this unfortunately awful sounding 78 it's sung by the magnificent William Schwartz. Hit aykh, meydelekh!


When I was just a child, I remember as if it were today,
I used to run around every minute with boys, playing in the street.
Laughing, fooling around, it wasn't nice.
That's what I've always been drawn to.
And sometimes I went to the movies and mother didn't know.
And when I went home, exhausted, so tired,
She sat me on her lap and sang me this song:

Girls, if life is dear to you, don't run around after a "good time"
Girls, protect yourselves as from fire. Kids, don't run away from home.
Girls, don't run along the evil path, because the shock will be too much for you.
Don't sell your innocence, girls, protect it like the eyes in your head.

I knew a girl, Rose, from a very respectable home,
She fell in love with a charlatan who promised to be her husband.
Her mother didn't like him. She ran away from home with him.
He promised her a wedding and seduced her. It was terrible.
Now she's lying sick in the hospital with a high fever.
And her mother hears how her feverish child sings a sad song:

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

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Labels: battle between the sexes, morality, mores, mother, nostalgia, womens rights

I picked this song because I loved the title. I wasn't able to find a period recording (or any recording) so I sang it myself this morning.

I don't know much about it. The music was written by Perlmutter & Wohl, the words by Hyman Altman, and it was sung by Mr Bernstein.

The transliteration they use is: As du kenst nit un weist nit, nemt men sich nit unter.


A second published music cover says it is from the "Latest Comedydrama played with great success at the Peoples Theatre" - the show being Dos Darfs Meydl (The Village Girl or The Country Girl).

Here's my recording:


Words after the jump.


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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, immigration, love, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, sarcasm, travails

This odious, misogynistic song can be found under many spellings, eg Mein Weib Shlept Sich Mit, Mein weib schlept sich nit, Mein wajb schlept sich mit, Mein weib shelpt sich mit.

As you see, it's from the 1922 musical Der rebe hot geheysen freylekh zayn (The rebbe says get happy). It was written by Isidore Lillian and Joseph Rumshinsky.


Originally sung by Sam Kasten (Sam Kestin), it was recorded by others. I particularly like Julian Nathanson's recording (Julius Nathanson) and he sings more of the verses, but he deviates from the printed music.

On eBay I saw an Odeon recording by S. Stramer.


Here I have used Abraham Moscowitz (Abraham Moskowitz) recording. He's been on the blog several times before, use the search box and check him out.


I've only transliterated and translated the two verses Moscowitz sings (after the jump). If you want the rest, just email me.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, male chauvinism, marriage, mores

This one has been in my to-do folder for years. A delightful collection of lebns-bilder!

I adapted a Sam Zagat cartoon to adorn it: this is from the day in 1916 when he came back to work after having been away from the newspaper for several months. For more of his work see GimpelBeynish.com



There's a lot of Yinglish here and some other interesting words. Couldn't figure out what "weik" (veyk) was. I liked pinke. Paul Wexler in Jewish and non-Jewish Creators of "Jewish Languages" (find it on google books) says pinke is, in Czech and Hungarian, "a box for money paid by cardplayers to the innkeeper" and that it stems from Judeo-Aramaic and perhaps Greek before that. Evidently the landlady was profiting by her association with her connected boarder until he cleaned her out.



I only recorded five of the seven verses but you can see them all after the jump.



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Labels: battle between the sexes, food, humor, immigration, love, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, New York, sarcasm, travails

1923 (the last year when music published in America is unquestionably in the public domain) is kind of the dividing line between this blog and the later songs I post on PolishJewishCabaret.com ... Alts far gelt, this cynical Yiddish song, was issued on that cusp, in 1923, by Aaron Lebedeff. I found the notes and verses at the Copyright Office at the Library of Congress, in his handwriting, saying that he wrote it.

Nadia Dehan of the Medem Bibliotek wrote to me and pointed out that a 1925 recording of this song by Charlie Cohan credits the song to Louis Gilrod and Peretz Sandler. So does a recording by Morris Goldstein. I suppose Lebedev was not above taking ownership of songs he didn't write, but I don't know how to figure out who is lying.

The fine picture on the right was drawn by Sam Zagat, it was a political cartoon published in the Warheit in 1917.

A generation later Henry Gerro added an introduction and wrote his own couplets and I posted his version on the other side: Henri Gerro sings Alts far gelt. You'll find it spelled Als far geld or Alles far geld or Alz for gelt or any combination you can think of.

Sheva Zucker and I tried to pick the words off the scratchy Lebedeff recording we had access to, but it was frustrating work, and then I remembered to look in Irene Heskes' guide, and the song was there, so I was able to get the original manuscript from Copyright Office. I deciphered it last week and recorded the song today.


Translation and transliteration after the jump.

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Labels: humor, klezmer, male chauvinism, marriage, mores, sarcasm

I'm in a hurry to get off to the protest at my senator's office (why won't Thom Tillis hold a town hall meeting and listen to his constituents?) so this is a quickie, I wanted it to launch on Valentine's Day.

Aaron Lebedeff (Lebedof, Lebedoff, Lebedev, Lebedef, etc) was known as a womanizer. But what a voice! And I guess when he tells girls to be careful, boys don't mean everything they say, he knows from personal experience.

I think he was about five feet tall.

Anyway, I came across this song when I was looking for another one (a cooler one) with the same title, sung by Annie Lubin. I don't have the words for that one but hope to find them some day.

"Der yeytser hore" is a creepy concept. I was taught it means "the evil inclination" but it's often used to mean "sex." Its original meaning is richer and more nuanced, I encourage you to google it and find out.

The song was transliterated "Oi der jeizer hore" and "Oi der yeizer hore" if you want to find it.

Click below for the video:



Text and translation (including the first verse, which is not on the recording) and also the sheet music cover after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, humor, male chauvinism, marriage, morality, mores, religion, sarcasm, womens rights

I'm used to inconsistencies on sheet music, but this one is really aggravating. On the inside the title is Weiber macht mich far President. In the sheet music itself it says macht mich far a prezident and on the cover it says Weiber macht mir far President. These days it would be written Vayber makht mikh far President. Exasperating.

Anyway, the song is from a 1910 show called Di sheyne Amerikanerin (In English they called it American Beauty). Bessie Thomasefsky was the American Beauty.

Besides this somewhat women's lib song, the show features the opposing side's position in its Der hersher iz der man (The husband is the ruler) and Mener, lernt ayere vayber (Husbands, teach your wives).

This recording was made by somebody with a cellphone in the audience at our show this past weekend, sorry for the wobbles. I added the subtitles.

The singers are Shana Barbieri, Susan Cohen, Rebecca Grossfield, and Nancy Rocamora. The arrangement is by the pianist and show empresario Gary Berman, the violinists are Enze Ma and Andy Smith, and viola da gamba is plaed by Fred Thomsen. Gary puts on this show every year.


Lyrics in transliteration and translation from the Yiddish after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, history, humor, male chauvinism, marriage, mores, sarcasm, womens rights