Yiddish Curiosities: a library of wonderful but forgotten Yiddish songs from the late 1920s and after (includes Polish Jewish Cabaret). Have a listen!

This song was printed by Joseph Feldman in an issue (was it the only one?) of his "Yiddish Theatrical Magazine," shared with me by Steven Lasky. This melody sounds like a folk song and the words have that feel as well, but Feldman copyrighted the song (or at least he wrote here that he did).

Note the transliteration, Mazel, we bisty mazel, and on the lyrics page it says Mazel, mazel, wie bisty mazel? In standard (klal) Yiddish this would probably be Mazl mazl vu bistu mazl? (Luck, luck, where are you, luck?) but in the first verse it says: Wie bisty fun mir antrinen? In which case I like vi (how) rather than vu (where). YMMV I guess.



Here's my recording from half an hour ago:



Words and translation after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, folksong, modernity, nostalgia, yiddish song

In 2014 I posted a folk song called Dos Fleshele (Chort voz'mi) which was found in the Itzik Zhelonek collection of Yiddish theater songs beloved in Warsaw between the wars. I transcribed the tune from a cassette made by Itzik Gottesman when Jacob Gorelick sang the song in his living room in the 1980s. Gorelick said the melody was borrowed from the Russian folksong карие глазки (Karie glazki).

Recently Steven Lasky, proprietor of the Museum of the Yiddish Theatre, posted this lovely issue of Joseph Feldman's "Yiddish Theatrical Magazine" on Facebook. It contained lyrics and even a few bits of written music. One of the songs is this one, Chort vozmi.

The tune is very similar to the earlier one, but different enough I suppose that Feldman felt he could copyright it. While the other song's lyrics focus on how rotten it is to be a drunk, this version focuses on how rotten it is that a woman dumps you and forces you to become an alcoholic.

Earlier today the helpful band of Facebook yids (Marek Tuszewicki, Shane Baker, Michael Alpert, Eli Rosen, and Paula Teitelbaum) helped me with the word bridiage: it means vagabond or bum in Russian. Eleanor Reissa said she loved the words and would like to hear the song, so I decided to just jump in and record it.


Here are the words as transcribed in Feldman's magazine. Once again I want you to feast your eyes on the extremely non-standard transliteration. I would not have ever guessed a spelling like TSORT WAS MIE and as I've said many times before, if you can't guess the spelling you can't find it.

Words and translation after the jump.

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Labels: battle between the sexes, booze, folksong, love, nostalgia

I heard this song in Yiddish on Charles Goldszlagier's online radio station Yiddish pour tous and immediately recognized it as a close translation of the famous Я на камушке сижу - here's a recording of the Russian folksong sung by Сергей Лемешев (Sergei Lemeshov):


The song I heard on the Yiddish radio station was sung by the magnificent Netania Davrath and it's available on her cd Netania Davrath Sings Russian, Yiddish & Israeli Folk Songs.

Davrath was born in Russia in 1931 and moved to Israel with her family in 1948. Her voice has been described as "tender, strong, nasal, arch, shy, abandoned, free from vibrato, pure and clean and distinctly un-operatic." She died in 1987.

So here's her recording of this Russian folksong translated into Yiddish as Af a shteyndl (or Af a shteindel as it is on the cd)




Words and translation of the Russian and the Yiddish into English after the jump

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Labels: folksong, making a living (poverty), nostalgia, yiddish song