Eyn por shikh hobn mir / We have one pair of shoes Yiddish camp song sung by Brayndl Rose, recorded by Itzik Gottesman at the Greene Family Camp, Waco Texas, 1993.
Commentary by Itzik Gottesman
The singer Brayndl Rose was born in Brest (Yiddish-Brisk) Poland (today Belarus) and came here at the age of ten. Though she said she had learned the song from the Yiddish theater, I was not surprised to see a recording of this song in the music archives of the National Library of Israel, where it was described as a camp song from a Yiddish cultural camp in the US. The singer in that recording was Fradie Pomerantz Friedenreich who wrote the book: Passionate Pioneers: The Story of Secular Yiddish Education in America 1910 – 1960 (2010). She included a CD of Yiddish camp and school songs with the publication.
I would also not be surprised if there were an english language camp song that provided the source, given the American sounding melody and that “Archie” is an American name. At the end of the song, Brayndl Rose says that the song continues using a different piece of clothing in each verse.
TRANSLITERATION
Eyn por shikh hobn mir.
Eyn por shikh un nit mer.
Geyen mir in der letster mode
un tsuzamen keyn mol nit.
REFRAIN
Ven Artshe darf geyn
blayb ikh in shtub aleyn
Ven Artshe darf geyn
blayb ikh in shtub aleyn
Nu, mir lebn zalbenand
in gliklekhn farband.
Sholem-veshalve
veharmonye ikh un er.
Eyn por hoyzn hobn mir,
eyn por hoyzn un nit mer.
Geyen mir in der letster mode
un tsuzamen keyn mol nit.
Ven Artshe darf geyn
blayb ikh in shtub aleyn
Ven Artshe darf geyn
blayb ikh in shtub aleyn.
Nu, mir lebn zalbenand
in gliklekhn farband.
Sholem-veshalve veharmonye
ikh un er.
Eyn rekl hobn mir….
Eyn hut hobn mir…
TRANSLATION
One pair of shoes we have one pair of shoes and no more. So we go out in the latest fashion but never together.
When Archie must leave I stay at home alone. When Archie must leave, I stay at home alone.
So we live two together in a happy union. Peace and quiet and in harmony he and I.
One pair of pants we have one pair of pants and no more. So we go out in the latest fashion but never together.
When Archie must leave I stay at home alone. When Archie must leave, I stay at home alone.
So we live two together in a happy union. Peace and quiet and in harmony he and I.
In this week‘s entry the reader will get four Yiddish songs for the price of one. What connects them is the same melody. I am not the first to write on the popularity of this tune. The Israeli Yiddish song-researcher Meir Noy wrote an article זמר סובב עולם [The tune that circles the world] in the Israeli publication אומר, April 13, 1962. I could not find the article yet, so am not sure what he includes.
The first song and perhaps the oldest is a beggar song – Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?); the second song Yosele mit Blimele (Yosele and Blimele) is a typical lyrical love song. These are sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman (LSW, 1893 – 1974), recorded in 1954 in NYC and originate from her Bukovina repertoire that she learned in the small town of Zvinyetchke in the 1890s-early 1900s. I have found no variants of the beggar song, and one of Yosele mit blimele (Oy vey mame, in the Pipe-Noy collection, see below, page 270-71 with music). The first line as my mother remembers it sung was “Vu iz mayn vugn, vu zenen mayne ferd?” which fits better into the melody; it does indeed sound as if LSW forgot a syllable or two when she sings it here, and forces it into the melody.
In the interviews that Professor Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett of New York University recorded with LSW in the early 1970s shortly before her death, LSW said that much of her repertoire, particularly the songs about life‘s difficulties, was learned from the older, married women in town, while the younger unmarried women taught her the hopeful love songs. Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd would fall into the category taught by the married women (vayber) while Yosele mit blimele would be a typical song performed during the Sabbath afternoon walks that the unmarried girls took into the woods. In terms of style, the beggar song is sung slower and more mournful, while the love song is more playful.
LSW sings other versions of Yosele mit blimele including a second verse:
Az du vest kumen, tsum dokter bay der tir, zolst im gebn a vink, azoy vi ikh tsu dir. Zolst im gebn a tuler in der hant. Vet er shoyn visn vus mit dir iz genant
When you come to the doctor’s door, you should give him a wink, like I give to you. you should give him a dollar in his hand; so he will know what embarrased you.
A verse which implies an abortion! But in such a light-hearted song it seems quite incongruous.
The third song – In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room) – is sung by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman (born 1920) and was recorded May 13th 2011 (last week) in the Bronx. She learned this song in one of her afternoon Yiddish classes in Chernovitz, (then Romania) either at the Morgnroit school (Socialist Bundist) or the Yidisher shulfareyn, a Yiddish cultural group, in the 1920s, early 1930s. Basically the same version was collected by the folklorists Shmuel-Zanvil Pipe and his brother Oyzer Pipe in their hometown of Sanok (in yiddish- Sunik), Galicia, then Poland. Dov and Meir Noy published the Pipe brothers collection in Israel (Folklore Research Studies , Vol. 2, Jerusalem 1971), and a copy of that version is attached with the music. See the footnote to the song by Dov and Meir Noy (p. 326) for other songs with this melody, and the reference to Meir Noy‘s article mentioned above.
In a kleynem shtibele is a worker‘s song, text written by the writer and ethnographer A. Litvin (pseudonym of Shmuel Hurvits 1863 – 1943) and the complete original text (Di neyterkes) can be found in M. Bassin‘s Antologye: Finf hundert yor yidishe poezye, volume one 258-259, NY 1917.
The fourth song with the same melody is In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). The Freedman Jewish Sound Archive has information on three recordings: a version by David Medoff (1923); Kapelye (the album „Future and Past‟, sung by Michael Alpert); and the German group Aufwind (from the album „Awek di junge jorn‟). We have included a link to the Medoff performance. See Mark Slobin and Richard Spotwood‘s article on Medoff (David Medoff: A Case Study in Interethnic Popular Culture in American Music, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Autumn, 1985), pp. 261-276.
AUDIO RECORDINGS:
Song 1:Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Song 2:Yosele mit Blimele(Yosele and Blimele). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Song 3:In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room). Performance by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, recorded May 12, 2011 by Itzik Gottesman.
Song 4: In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). Performance by David Medoff, recorded 1923.
TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS
Song 1:Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd? (Where are my wagon and horse?). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Vu zenen mayne vugn un ferd?
Az ikh bin aroysgefurn, hot getsitert himl un erd.
Hant bin ikh urem; shtey ikh ba der tir.
Kimen tsu geyn di sholtikes un lakhn (up?) fin mir.
Where are my wagon and horse?
When I first drove out, heaven and earth shook.
Now that I am poor, I stand at the door.
So the scoundrels come by to mock me.
Vi iz mayn tsiring vus ikh hob gebrakht fin vin?
Vus mayn vab un kinder zenen gegongen ongetin?
Hant az ikh bin urem, shtey ikh far der tir.
Kimen tsu geyn di sholtikes un lakhn up (?) fin mir.
Where is the jewelry that I had brought from Vienna?
That was worn by my wife and children.
Now that I am poor, I stand by the door.
So the scoundrels come by to mock me. Song 2:Yosele mit Blimele(Yosele and Blimele). Performance by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn.
Yosele mit Blimele zey zitsn af a bank.
Oy vey Blimele, ikh bin azoy krank.
Kh‘hob aza krenk, ikh shem zikh oystsuzugn,
Der dokter hot mir geheysn khasene-hobn.
Yosele and Blimele are sitting on a bench.
Oh dear Blimele, I am so very ill.
I have an illness, I am embarrased to reveal –
The doctor ordered me to get married.
Khasene hobn – es geyt dir nor in deym.
Khasene hobn – ken men glaykh ven (?) me vil aleyn.
Khasene hobn – darf men hubn gelt.
Ken men opfirn a sheyne velt.
Getting married – is all you can think of.
Getting married is easy if you want to do by ourselves.
Getting married – you need money for that,
and then you can have a beautiful world.
Yingelekh un meydelekh hot shoyn nisht keyn moyre.
Khasene hubn – es shteyt dokh in der toyre.
As der shnader shnadt – shnadt er mit der mode
un az der rebe vil a vab, meygn mir avode.
Boys and girls, you no longer have to fear.
Getting married – It says so in the Torah.
When the tailor tailors, he cuts according to the fashion
and if the Rebbe wants a wife, then we may too of course.
Song 3:In a kleynem shtibele (In a Small Room). Performance by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, recorded May 12, 2011 by Itzik Gottesman.
In a kleynem shtibele, bay a langn tish. Zitsn dortn meydelekh un dreyen mit di fis. Zey dreyen di mashindelekh fun fri biz nakht Un azoy vern tutsnvayz hemdelekh gemakht.
In a small room, at a long table, There sit girls and turn with their feet. They turn the machines from early to night. And thus by the dozens, shirts are produced. Girls, so small, tell me why are you pale?
Meydelekh ir kleninke, zogt vos zent ir blas? Hemdelekh ir vaysinke, zogt vos zent ir nas? Meydelekh un hemdelekh, zey reydn nisht keyn vort. Nor di mashindelekh zey geyen imer fort.
Shirts so white, tell me why are you wet? Girls and shirts, they do not speak a word. But the machines, they keep going forever.
Song 4: In shtetl Nikolayev (In the Town of Nikolayev). Performance by David Medoff, recorded 1923.
Transliterated lyrics courtesy of the German klezmer band Aufwind may be found on the Zemerl website by clicking here.
I never thought I would thank Google Books in this blog, but the website has opened up tremendous possibilities for the Yiddish folksong researcher. In addition to having access to song collections, one can type in a search word in Yiddish and find it in dozens or hundreds of works. The Harvard Library and its unique Leo Wiener Collection, which is full of 19th century Yiddish folk literature, is being made available on the site.
And so I was able to look at Yitskhok-Yoel Linetski‘s work Der beyzer marshelik (1869) for the first time in its entirety. One of the poems is called „Di mode‟ (“Fashion;” “mode” has two syllables) and I immediately identified it as the source of a song my grandmother Lifshe Schaechter-Widman [LSW] sang called „Di mode.”
Linetski (1839 – 1915) was one of the earliest maskilic (“enlightened”) Yiddish writers, and his novel Dos Poylishe yingl (1868) later called “Dos khsidishe yingl‟ was the first bestseller of modern Yiddish literature.
Yitskhok-Yoel Linetski
Linetski’s life story was amazing. He was raised in a strict Hasidic home in Vinnitsa, and when he was suspected of reading “forbidden” literature, he was married off at age fourteen to a twelve-year old girl. But then he convinced his young wife of his path, so they forced him to divorce her and marry a “deaf, half-idiotic woman” (see Zalmen Reizen‘s Leksikon fun der yidisher literatur). That didn‘t work either and when they tried to throw him into the river, he escaped to Odessa.
To analyze how Linetski‘s text was folklorized in LSW‘s version, recorded in 1954 by Leybl Kahn in New York City, is a longer essay. But as an example, compare Linetski‘s original refrain:
Oy a ruekh in der mode a leyd. Vos zi hot af der velt a nets farshpreyt!
Oh, the devil take the fashion, what a pain, That spread a net over the world.
with LSW‘s refrain:
Oy, nor di mode aleyn, nor di mode aleyn, hot far undz umglik gebrengt.
Oh, only the fashion alone, only the fashion alone has brought us misfortune.
Only in the last refrain does she sing “the devil take the fashion,” which I believe works better dramatically. Usually the “folk process” improves the longer, wordy maskilic poetry.
Other songs that originate from the work Beyzer marshelik are Dos redl performed by (Israel Srul) Freed on Ruth Rubin‘s field recording collection “Jewish Life: The Old Country” and recently recorded as the title track of klezmer violinist Jake Shulman-Ment‘s CD A Wheel/A redele, sung by Benjy Fox-Rosen. LSW also sang a version of Dos vigele with the opening line „Shlis shoyn mayn kind dayne oygn…‟ which will be posted on this blog at some point.
In LSW‘s performance of Di mode you get to hear her sing a more upbeat song, with a great melody. The traditional aspects of LSW‘s singing (the ornamentaion in particular) are applied to a more modern song, and the synthesis works wonderfully.
Yiddish Song of the Week 