¨Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe” Performed by Lifshe Schaechter Widman

Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe / They’re Already Walking to the Khupe!
Sung by Lifshe Schaechter-Widman, recorded by Leybl Kahn 1954 NYC.

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman

Though Lifshe Schaechter Widman (LSW) introduces the song by saying it used to be sung on the way to the khupe (wedding canopy), it is a song mocking the wedding, not a part of the ceremony by any means.

Image of a Wedding Procession by Isaak Ashknaziy, 1893

The melody to this song was probably inspired by the klezmer tune known as the “Odesser Bulgar” found in Kammen collection “Dance Folio No.1 #18. (Thanks to Michael Alpert for pointing this out). Here is a link to the Alexandria Kleztet from the D.C. area and their version of the Odesser Bulgar:

In addition to LSW’s, two other texts to this song can be found in the Shmuel Zanvel Pipe song collection Folklore Research Centre Studies, Volume 2, Jerusalem, 1971, (edited by Meir and Dov Noy). They have been scanned and attached. The first version is in the body of the text and includes the melody. The second is in the end notes and includes different words and a second section of the melody as Meir Noy, also a Galitsyaner from Kolomyia (Yid = Kolomey) remembered it. LSW’s melody also has a second section or the begining of one.

The image of the fiddle “speaking” at the wedding (in essence warning the young couple) reminds one of the Itzik Manger poem “Der badkhn”, music by Henekh Kon.

Nor vos zogt der fidl, zog fidele zog!
¨Di sheynkayt iz sheyn, nor sheynkeyt fargeyt.¨
Azoy zogt der fidl un vos zogt di fleyt?

What does the fiddle say, tell us fiddle!”
“Beauty is nice, but beauty fades.”
So says the fiddle and what says the flute?

The only word in LSW’s version that is still not clear is “sekl” or “seke”; a word not found in the Yiddish dictionaries but “seke” does also appear in the second version in the notes of the Pipe collection. Michael Alpert suggests it could be a klezmer term for the sekund; the rhythmic and harmonic fiddle in klezmer music.

The word “opgeklogt”, pronounced by LSW as “u’geklugt” is open to interpretation, but I believe she means “good riddance, the parents have suffered enough”. In Pipe’s versions the line is “A yingl hot a meydl ongeklogt” which has a completely different meaning, but also open to interpretation.

Special thanks for helping with the blog post this week: Eliezer Niborski who transcribed LSW’s version, Michael Alpert, Josh Waletzky, Mark Slobin, Pete Rushefsky.

TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION

LSW speaks: “A lid vus me fleyg zingen az me geyt tsi der khipe in Galitsye, in Bukovina.”
A song that used to be sung on the way to the khupe [marriage canopy] in Galicia and Bukovina.

[Un] Me geyt shoyn tsi der khipe, me geyt!
Me trasket un me fliasket, s’iz a freyd!
Herts nor vus der fidl zugt:
“A bukher mit a moyd u’geklugt” [opgeklugt]

[And] They’s already walking to the khupe!
People are banging and celebrating, what a joy!
Listen to what the fiddle says:
“Good riddance to the bride and groom”

Un dort der bas mit der sekl (seke?):
Niech będzie na długo i na wieki’ [Polish]

And there the bass and the sekund (fiddle)
[Polish]: May it be for long and forever.

Un aykh makhuteyniste – git-morgn!
Ir hot shoyn frishe zorgn:
Me bayt di rayneshlekh af kronen.
Me zikht a voynung vi tse voynen.

And you my mother-in-law – good morning!
You have fresh worries:
You have to exchange the Rhenish for Kronen [currency]
and find a place to live.

REPEAT FIRST VERSE

Instrumental klezmer version of the melody  found in J. & J. Kammenś collection Dance Folio No.1, #18:

Version found in Shmuel Zanvel Pipeś song collection Folklore Research Centre Studies, Volme 2, Jerusalem, 1971, (edited by Meir and Dov Noy):

“Blumke mayn zhiduvke” Performed by Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman

Commentary by Itzik Gottesman.

In the late 1970s, Beyle Schaechter-Gotetsman (BSG) made this recording of Mordkhe Gebirtig’s (1877 – 1942) song Blumke mayn zhiduvke, which is based on a Russian folk motif/theme. She sang it into her cassette recorder in preparation for an afternoon program of Gebirtig songs at the Sholem Aleichem Cultural Center in the Bronx. The song, written as a duet, is one of the lesser known of Gebirtig’s songs and, it seems, has only been recorded twice, both relatively recently – by Manfred Lamm in 2006 on the album Mayn traum/Mayn cholem, and by the singers Mariejan van Oort and Jacques Verheijen in 2003 on the album Mayn Fayfele (click here to hear van Oort and Verheijen’s version).

Mordkhe Gebirtig

“Blumke” was the first name of Gebirtig’s wife (Blume Lindenbaum). The words and music were reprinted in most of the editions of Gebirtig’s songs, but only in the table of contents of the original edition of his volume Mayne lider  (Krakow 1936) does it add the information: “Rusishe folksmotiv; baarbet fun M. Gebirtig” – “Russian folk motif /theme adapted by M. Gebirtig.” (Thanks to Jeff Warschauer and Deborah Strauss for access to that volume).

BSG learned this song in Chernovitz, Romania, in the 1930s and only a few words in her performance are different from Gebirtig’s original text, so we are attaching the original Yiddish text and melody from the NY 1942 edition of Mayne lider. The Yiddish, the transliteration and the translation will be based on BSG’s slightly different lyrics.

The song has some Polish words: zhiduvka – Jewess/Jewish girl, kruvka – little cow, bozhe – O, God.  The song is briefly discussed in the article “The Relations between Jews and Christians as Reflected in the Yiddish Songs by Mordehaj Gebirtig” by Elvira Grozinger, Scripta Judaica Cracoviensia, vol. 8, 2010.

Blumke, mayn zhiduvke
Okh, zay fun Got gezegnt.
Hostu efsher mayne tsigelekh
ergets vu bagegnt?

Kh’hob zey liber Stakhu,
in ergets nit getrofn.
Akh, vet dikh dayn beyzer tatke
haynt derfar bashtrofn.

Oy, vet dikh dayn beyzer tatke
dikh derfar bashtrofn.

Gekholemt fun dir, sertse,
gezen in feld dikh lign.
Plutslung kuk ikh, akh, vu zenen
mayne vayse tsign?

Efsher, liber Stakhu
S’iz andersh nit tsu klern.
Zenen zey in vald farkrokhn –
oy, dort voynen bern!

Bozhe! Okh, mayn Blumke,
vos zol ikh itst baginen.
Nisht gehitn mayne tsigelekh;
dikh gehat in zinen.

Zay keyn nar, mayn Stakhu,
nit far dir iz Blumke.
Liber nem aroys dayn fayfl,
shpil mir oyf a dumke.

Kh’vel mayn tatns kruvke
un alts vos kh’hob farkoyfn.
Lomir beyde, sheyne Blumke,
Ergets vayt antloyfn.

Zay keyn nar, mayn Stakhu,
Nit farkoyf dayn kruvke!
Zukh dir oys in dorf a goyke –
ikh bin a zhiduvke!

Roytlekh shoyn der himl.
Di zun fargeyt, pavolye.
Akh, vu zent ir, mayne tsigelekh,
kumt baveynt mayn dolye.

Blumke, my Jewish girl/Jewess
O, may God  bless you.
Have you, perhaps,
seen somewhere, my little goat?

I have not, dear Stakhu,
seen them anywhere.
Oh, your mean father
will punish you today for this.

I dreamed of you, my dear,
lying in a field.
Suddenly I look – oh,
where are my white goats?

Maybe, my dear Stakhu –
There can be no other way –
they wandered off into the woods
oh no! Bears live there.

My God! dear Blumke,
Where do I begin.
I did not guard my goats,
I was thinking of you.

Don’t be a fool, dear Stakhu.
You are not destined for Blumke.
Take out your flute
and play for me a dumka.*

I will sell my father’s little cow
and sell all that I have.
Let us, pretty Blumke,
Run away somewhere.

Don’t be a fool, my Stakhu.
Don’t sell your little cow.
Find yourself a non-Jewish girl in the village
I am a Jewish girl.

The sky is reddish,
the sun sets slowly.
O, where are you my little goat,
Come lament my fate.

*diminutive of “dumy” – epic ballads sung by Ukrainian kobzars. In the late 19th and early 20th century Slavic classical composers such as Dvorak were inspired to create classical dumka, “a type of instrumental music involving sudden changes from melancholy to exuberance” (Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music, 1978).