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

Leo Fuchs (1911-1994) was one of the great American Yiddish singing actors, born late enough to show himself off at his peak in several movies. Good looking, tall, wore clothes well, a magnificent dancer (as you can see in this clip which unfortunately stops just as some of the greatest dancing starts), funny.

I love this song, egregious as it is. I do not condone its sentiments but I love it just the same. How would you spell it in Yiddish? Trubl?

Not sure I got the words totally right, but I got close. I have transcribed it onto sheet music if you'd like it.

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My translation of the Yiddish lyrics after the jump.

The world's gone to hell, business are falling apart. Trouble.
Everybody is bankrupt these days, may God protect us. Trouble.
Wherever you go you hear folks shouting, "Oy gevald, terrible times." Trouble
A poor man or a rich one, believe me, suffers from endless miseries. It's trouble.

And do the "trouble, trouble," it's growing by the meter
Trouble, trouble, it grows taller and wider
Living in terrible times it doesn't help to cry or shout
Big, little, everybody's desperate
We grab, we snatch, we sit at the edge of a precipice
Trouble for everybody

I went to a wedding and saw a hunchbacked bride. Trouble.
Suddenly an outcry was heard: "The dowry!" shouted the bridegroom. Trouble.
The bride actually fainted from terror that the bridegroom wouldn't take her
Her father was endlessly begging. It's trouble.
"Wait up, dear bridebroom, I'm going to struggle? for you, after the wedding I will give you - trouble."

Oy, "first came night and then came day..."
Forget the dowry, give him the hunchback
Trouble for everybody.

Labels: battle between the sexes, humor & satire, love, making a living (poverty)