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

People have been contacting me with requests for songs they remember from their childhood. A recent request was for a folk song the lady spelled this way: "Ich ken shoin nisht einhalten." The YIVO transliteration for that would be "Ikh ken shoyn nisht aynhaltn." I didn't find it that way, but Itzik Gottesman of the marvelous blog Yiddish Song of the Week helped me find the song, which he knows as "Ikh hob dokh dir gezogt un gezogt" and which Ruth Rubin transcribed as "Kh'hob Dokh Dir Gezugt in Gezugt in Gezugt."

Further, the line in the chorus in her version (the only one I found online) says not aynhaltn but oyshaltn: "Oy ikh ken es shoyn nisht OYShaltn" - this is the sort of thing that makes searching for Yiddish songs so difficult.

If you'd like a copy of this song email me: jane@mappamundi.com