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

This song is earlier than the Zhelonek repertoire, it was published in 1919. Which, if you come to think about it, is almost 100 years ago so we are supposed to living this peculiar utopia described in the song.

A lot of the illustrations in the video, done in the early 20th century, have the words "In the year 2000" on them. They did a very poor job of guessing how things were going to be fourteen years ago! The curse of prognostication. I discovered this morning when I was making the video that these images are now called "retrofuturistic." Here's the video:



The song originally said that in the future women would be stout and healthy and one would have 30-40 children. I changed this to 13-14, which is sufficiently frightening for me. I love the tune and the chorus is very catchy, it would make an excellent Yiddish sing-along. Here's the sheet music if you want it, with lyrics, melody, chords, etc.:

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There's a copy of the lyrics in the Hebrew Union College "Penny Songs" microfilms, but I first found the words to this song at Harvard's Widener library (note that the sheet music on the first page is printed upside down):





On some recordings there are different verses. I asked Lorin Sklamberg and he wrote:

We have [at YIVO] the original published version from 1919, which I am attaching here - the words differ from what you have below, as you will see. We also have two recordings made in the same year which both feature the first two verses as printed (these are by Louis Birnbaum and Joseph Feldman).

The 1919 words were by David Meyerovitz (Meyerowitz) and the tune supposedly by J. M. Rumshisky (later Rumshinsky). "Song from Tomashefsky's Musical Comedy Upstairs and Downstairs Sung by Sam Kastin."

This sheet music says on the outside "In 100 Yohr Arim" and on the inside, "In Hundert Johr A Rim." It's also spelled "In Indert Johr Erum" and "In 100 johr arum" and "In 100 Yohr Erum" so you see the problem with googling Yiddish song titles.

The third version I have, undated, from the Hebrew Union College "Morris Rund Penny Song Collection," says it was written and reworked by I. Kh. Glezer



Evidently this song was performed in a Yiddish theater show called "Upstairs, Downstairs" by Sam Kastin. It was supposedly written by David Meyerowitz (original lyrics) and J. M. Rumshisky (later Rumshinsky). I say supposedly because a lot of thieving went on and it's hard to say who is the rightful composer.

Here is my rather loose English translation of the Yiddish:

Labels: fun, humor & satire, klezmer, making a living (poverty), modernity, yiddish performers, yiddish theater song