Yudel mit zayn fiedel, sung by Shlomo Lindenfeld, was adapted from Fishel Zinger's version and predates Tuvim's "Stara piosenka"
Turns out Stanford University has a copy of an 8-page pamphlet of song lyrics by Shlomo Lindenfeld, published in Warsaw in 1912. He was one of the biggest contributors of songs to Zhelonek's collection but I've never heard his voice. Stanford was going to charge me $95 to make these eight pages, but I knew a guy, so he went and did it for me. (Click for larger view of the cover.)I've started collecting information for a new project of Yiddish theater songs and popular songs from New York 1895-1925 and am posting what I find at Yiddish Penny Songs (information and recordings both). The song I'm discussing today, Yidl mit zayn fidl, straddles both projects: from the way the words of the chorus scan, it's clearly set to the same (or to a very similar) tune used by Polish Jewish composer Julian Tuvim when he wrote the Polish language song Stara piosenka (Old Song). Also, the plot of Tuvim's version seems derived from the first verse of the Yiddish Yudl mit zayn fidel version published in Lindenfeld's booklet.
Here's our band, with Beth Holmgren singing lead, our recording of Tuvim's Stara piosenka:
(To be clear, this song in all its forms predates the Yidl mitn fidl familiar to so many from Molly Picon's movie.)
Now before Lindenfeld came on the scene in Poland, this same lyric published in his book was published in New York and I discuss it here, with text, translation, and mp3s: Yidl mit zayn fidl ...
... and on the earlier broadside the attribution is "by F. Zinger." This person has been identified for me as Vaudeville and Yiddish theater personage Fishel Zinger (or Fishel Singer or Philip Singer). In Zilberzweig it is stated that he is indeed the writer of Yidl mit zayn fidl, "from an English text and motif." This mysterious Fishl Zinger is also credited as author of the song Tsum Tayvl.
Here is the sheet from Shlomo Lindenfeld's booklet Der kupletist from 1912 (click it for a larger view):
Labels: emigration, making a living (poverty), modernity, nostalgia, vaudeville