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

The sheet music transcription is Mir fehlt a freint and in the Zhelonek collection the more Germanified form "fraynd" is used.

I guess this is one of the last ones to get recorded because it's kind of grim and is yet another from the "Without your mother you will go out in the cold without your socks and get pneumonia" genre.

I wickedly proposed to Aviva Enoch, who plays piano here, that we put this one out on Mothers Day but she sensibly declined so we did it yesterday. Words by Isidor Lillian, music by Sholom Secunda (he is sometimes called Samuel), the song was part of a "romantic operetta" called Sweet Moments by William Siegel and Louis Freiman.

Here's our version, on Youtube:

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I now have more than 50 Yiddish theater songs (and a few folk songs) up on youtube with English subtitles. I thought this would be handy for people learning Yiddish. There are so many now that when you go to the page (Mappamundi Yiddish songs youtube channel) you have to go to the bottom of the grid and press "more" to get the next batch.

Labels: home, mother, nostalgia, yiddish theater song