“Vus hosti dekh azoy ayngelibt in mir?” Performed by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman
Vus hosti dekh azoy ayngelibt in mir? / Why did you fall so in love with me?
A lyric love song sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman.
Recorded by Leybl Kahn, 1954 NYC
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
Yet another lyric love song, a dialogue between boy and girl, from Lifshe Schaechter-Widman [LSW], recorded by Leybl Kahn. She most probably learned this in her home town in the Bukovina, Zvinyetshke. The song implies that the “Christian Hospital” is the worst place for a person to be.
A page from Leybl Kahn’s notes on LSW’s songs, 1954-55.
The typical four-line stanza in Yiddish lyric song usually has an ABCB rhyming scheme. In this song, the singer rhymes “gezeyn” with “fayn” in the 2nd and 4th line, in the first stanza. Rhyming the “ey” and the “ay” sounds seems to be acceptable to the Yiddish folksinger and LSW is not the only one to do this.
TRANSLITERATION
LSW spoken: A libeslid.
Vus hosti dekh azoy ayngelibt in mir?
Vus hosti af mir azoy derzeyn?
Kenst dekh nemen a sheyn meydele mit nadn
in leybn mit ir gur fayn.
Sheynkeyt hob ikh shoyn gezeyn.
in raykhkeyt makht bay mir nit oys.
Az ikh gib mit dir a red a pur klige verter,
tsisti bay mir mayne [di] koykhes aroys.
Shpatsirn ze’ mir gegangen,
der veyg iz geveyn far indz tsi shmul.
A shvartsn sof zol dayn mame hubn,
zi zol lign in kristlekhn shpitul.
Shpatsirn ze’mir beyde gegangen,
der veyg iz geveyn far indz tsi breyt.
A shvartsn sof zol dayn mame hubn,
vayl zi hot indz beyde tsesheydt.
TRANSLATION
LSW spoken: a love song.
Why did you fall so in love with me?
What did you see in me?
You could have taken a pretty girl with a dowry,
and lived with her just fine.
Beauty, I have already seen,
and wealth doesn’t matter to me.
When I speak just a few smart words with you,
you pull out all of my power.
We went a walking,
the road was too narrow for us.
A black end may your mother have,
I hope she lay in the Christian hospital.
We went a walking,
the road was to wide for us.
A black end may your mother have,
for she split us up.
Yiddish Song of the Week 
June 20, 2019 at 5:04 pm
Mark Slobin comments: “What a lovely song, with issues like the flirtation with waltz time, the affective gestures that express/complement the tender/bitter lyric, the neutral seventh, the pauses, the extra syllable squeeze-in, etc.”
March 11, 2023 at 7:10 pm
In ״Frishman’s yubileyum-bukh” תשע״ד warsaw. there is a small collection of folksongs collected by Shmuel Lehman and Pinkhes Graubard. On page 208 in the song “A koyl, a koyl, a fayerdiker koyl” there are the last two verses of our sing week. This is followed by two other verses found in the song “Ikh hob ongehoybn shpiln a libe”, also in our collection at Yiddish Song of the Week.