אַ ניקל פֿאַר זיי, אַ ניקל פֿאַר מיר

[sovay]

Apparently I can no longer re-toast myself a signature half pastrami, half corned beef sandwich from Mamaleh's without spending the rest of the evening singing the same-named hit from a 1917 American Yiddish musical. The Folksbiene never seems to have revived it and if the rest of the score was as catchy, they really should. (I am charmed that the composer clearly found the nickel conceit tempting enough to revisit in a later show, but that line quoted about the First Lady, didn't I just ask the twentieth century to stay where we left it?)

At the other end of the musical spectrum, spatch maintains it is not American-normal to be able to sing the Holst setting of "In the Bleak Midwinter," which until last night I had assumed was just such seasonal wallpaper that I had absorbed it by unavoidable dint of Christmas—it's one of the carols I can't remember learning, unlike others which have identifiable vectors in generally movies, madrigals, or folk LPs. Opinions?

Thanks to lunisolar snapback, Hanukkah like every other holiday this year seems to have sprung up out of nowhere, but we managed to get hold of candles last night and tomorrow will engage in the mitzvah of last-minute cleaning the menorah.

P.S. I fell down a slight rabbit hole of Bruce Adler and now feel I have spent an evening at a Yiddish vaudeville house on the Lower East Side circa 1926.

Comments

[mrissa]

Of course I can sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." But I think that "wood as hard as iron/ water like a stone/snow is falling, snow on snow/snow on snow" has special resonance here.

I once did holiday cards that had an ice picture T had taken and said "wood as hard as iron/water like a stone." I am festive. It sounds like many people didn't know what I was quoting. Welp. Ope.

[sovay]

Of course I can sing "In the Bleak Midwinter." But I think that "wood as hard as iron/ water like a stone/snow is falling, snow on snow/snow on snow" has special resonance here.

I mean, under formerly normal climatic circumstances, so would it in New England.

I once did holiday cards that had an ice picture T had taken and said "wood as hard as iron/water like a stone." I am festive. It sounds like many people didn't know what I was quoting. Welp. Ope.

So it may be American-normal by region? Intriguing.

[landofnowhere]

*In the Bleak Midwinter* was sung regularly at my home UU church (the UU hymnal lyrics substantially tone down the Christianity of it; I <3 Christina Rossetti but I don't think Christian sappiness is her best look). I don't remember it being on any of the Christmas CDs my family had in our collection growing up, though.

[sovay]

*In the Bleak Midwinter* was sung regularly at my home UU church (the UU hymnal lyrics substantially tone down the Christianity of it; I <3 Christina Rossetti but I don't think Christian sappiness is her best look).

I will check out those lyrics. Not having a home church of any denomination is one of the reasons I assumed the song is just sort of free-floating this time of year. I hadn't thought of Christmas CDs, partly because my family does not have that many. For decades we have decorated the tree to Cirque du Soleil.

[cgbookcat1]

Well I know it very well, but I have been a choral singer since 2nd grade and I don't remember learning it for the first time!

[sovay]

Well I know it very well, but I have been a choral singer since 2nd grade and I don't remember learning it for the first time!

I have also sung formally since childhood, but have no memory of learning this particular carol in a choral or solo context as opposed to a freight of other inevitable Christmas music. I can't even blame Britten, since he did his own setting of the text. It wouldn't have occurred to me as mysterious if it hadn't come up.

[alexxkay]

I first became aware of "In the Bleak Midwinter" when Kenneth Branagh titled a film that (rather puzzlingly).

[sovay]

I first became aware of "In the Bleak Midwinter" when Kenneth Branagh titled a film that (rather puzzlingly).

I am currently resenting the absence of that film from Kanopy or Tubi or any other of my normal streaming services! From what I know of the premise, it makes sense to me as a title.

[ethelmay]

Data point: I think it's one of the ones I taught myself out of a book at some point, rather than being one I learned singing carols with the family.

[sovay]

Data point: I think it's one of the ones I taught myself out of a book at some point, rather than being one I learned singing carols with the family.

That is a neat and valid data point. Everyone in comments so far has a different answer.

[moon_custafer]

I can’t recall exactly when I learnt it, although I’m getting an image of the chapel at Mt. Allison University. I did sing in a lot of choirs.

[sovay]

I can’t recall exactly when I learnt it, although I’m getting an image of the chapel at Mt. Allison University. I did sing in a lot of choirs.

I would have expected Madrigals in high school to be the usual suspects, especially since we did Christmas concerts at the Gardner Museum, but it just doesn't click.

[yarrowkat]

i will be the outlier here then and confess i had neither heard, nor heard of, that song before today. as a general rule i run screaming from avoid christmas as a whole and especially its music, so this is perhaps unsurprising. if your regional theory turns out to hold water, i am also from the desert southwest where carolling is (i think) less of a thing than in New England.

[sovay]

i will be the outlier here then and confess i had neither heard, nor heard of, that song before today.

Thank you for your outlying data point! For context on my side, I was raised with a handful of consciously celebrated Christmas traditions in a not even part-Christian household, with results like a never-belief in Santa Claus and a knowledge of how to make a roast, a plum pudding, and a combustibly alcoholic eggnog. I don't regret my parents having made this decision, but it does mean that periodically I run into something like this song, where if it is out of the mainstream, someone is going to have to tell me, because I sincerely grew up thinking it was normal to light a twice-steamed and multiply brandy-soaked pudding on fire for Christmas dinner.

[moon_custafer]

*reads the plot summary of the musical*

Then comes an equally startling “revelation”: Yukit is not Yukit, but a disguised Jew, and a litvak (Lithuanian Jew) at that, which itself represented an internal stereotyping for comic purposes.

*an hour later, sits up in bed* —Wait, was Daniel Pinkwater referencing this when he created Heinz, the Chinese Butler in Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death?

[sovay]

—Wait, was Daniel Pinkwater referencing this when he created Heinz, the Chinese Butler in Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death?

Frankly there is no reference so obscure I wouldn't put it past Daniel Pinkwater.

(A con man who claims that his grandmother once looked through a machzor with Queen Victoria practically is a Pinkwater character. I mean you could drop a line like that in Borgel and nobody would blink.)

[muccamukk]

I can't sing anything, but I did think of that song as at least adjacent to Christmas. I certainly only ever hear it in December.

Happy holiday, though! I hope your lamps burn bright.

[sovay]

I can't sing anything, but I did think of that song as at least adjacent to Christmas. I certainly only ever hear it in December.

Recognition counts for purposes of this unofficial poll! I can't imagine it outside of a Christmas context, either. Huh. I wonder if I could have heard it at the Revels. (This jump of thought brought to you by Sydney Carter's "Lord of the Dance," which properly speaking should be an Easter song, it's a Passion, but John Langstaff made it the cornerstone of the Christmas Revels in 1971 and so I first heard it, twenty years later.)

Happy holiday, though! I hope your lamps burn bright.

Thank you! We need it.

[cmcmck]

It is catchy for sure! :o)

A freylichen Chanukah

[sovay]

A freylichen Chanukah

A sheynem dank!

[teenybuffalo]

*rabbit hole of lyrics and plot summaries* This Rumshinsky is a hoot. His lyrics are even funny in literal translations!

[sovay]

This Rumshinsky is a hoot. His lyrics are even funny in literal translations!

Seriously, I'd day-trip to New York for either of those shows.

[desireearmfeldt]

I vote for "seasonal wallpaper," though not one of the super-popular ones. I know the tune and some of the words but it's not a song I've ever sung/listened to deliberately. (I come from a secular Christmas-celebrating background, with a de-emphasis on 20th century Christmas songs.)

[sovay]

I vote for "seasonal wallpaper," though not one of the super-popular ones. I know the tune and some of the words but it's not a song I've ever sung/listened to deliberately. (I come from a secular Christmas-celebrating background, with a de-emphasis on 20th century Christmas songs.)

I can't associate it with any particular recording, either, I can just do about three verses off the top of my head, which is how this whole conversation started. Thank you for your vote!

[asakiyume]

That "Fifty-Fifty" made me smile on this bleak midwinter morning. Vanderbilt sewing cloaks--fifty-fifty!

Re "In the bleak midwinter," not sure! I think I first heard in England, actually being caroled. Or maybe in some year's edition of the Lessons and Carols from King's College. ... But yeah: I don't think it's "Deck the Halls"-level of penetration!

[sovay]

That "Fifty-Fifty" made me smile on this bleak midwinter morning. Vanderbilt sewing cloaks--fifty-fifty!

It's only fair!

Re "In the bleak midwinter," not sure! I think I first heard in England, actually being caroled. Or maybe in some year's edition of the Lessons and Carols from King's College. ...

I think it's very neat if you heard it first in the wild. I hadn't thought about it at all until two nights ago. I know a lot of songs I can't trace!

But yeah: I don't think it's "Deck the Halls"-level of penetration!

I always associate that one with Sandra Boynton.

[regshoe]

the same-named hit from a 1917 American Yiddish musical

That is catchy :D

I definitely learnt 'In the Bleak Midwinter' in a non-specifically-remembered general picking up of carols way. I would say it's not in the top tier of well-known carols but it's not much further down.

[sovay]

That is catchy

It runs in my head for days.

I definitely learnt 'In the Bleak Midwinter' in a non-specifically-remembered general picking up of carols way. I would say it's not in the top tier of well-known carols but it's not much further down.

Data point appreciated! What would you consider top-tier carols?

[selkie]

A freylikhn khanike!
The Workers Circle spelled it Khanuke in an ad and we are not doing that.

[sovay]

A freylikhn khanike!

I almost typed "a sheydim dank" and we did that one already!

*hugs*

The Workers Circle spelled it Khanuke in an ad and we are not doing that.

I thought of.

[genarti]

As a kid in Ohio, I grew up with "In the Bleak Midwinter" as occasional rather than omnipresent Christmas music, though of course I can sing it as well; when we moved to Vermont, I found it to be a Christmas standard, sung every year at church, and I've heard it quite a bit in Massachusetts too. I'm with you rather than with Spatch on this one!

Mind you, I also think the wording echoes strongly enough to The Dark is Rising in particular that it lodged extra firmly in my memory; you may or may not have had the same phenomenon.

[sovay]

when we moved to Vermont, I found it to be a Christmas standard, sung every year at church, and I've heard it quite a bit in Massachusetts too. I'm with you rather than with Spatch on this one!

Thank you! It is difficult for me to argue from my own experience whether something is normative or not, often because I can't even tell.

Mind you, I also think the wording echoes strongly enough to The Dark is Rising in particular that it lodged extra firmly in my memory; you may or may not have had the same phenomenon.

No, that first verse has the spells of the deep cold all over it. "Rivers that had never frozen before stood as solid ice . . . People could do little more than wait for the snow to stop; but still the snow fell."

[telly]

Here from DW Network, hope you don't mind another opinion?

Californian born and raised, and In the Bleak Midwinter is such a Regular Carol to me that I'm a bit surprised there are people (who celebrate Christmas or otherwise listen to Christmas Music) who WOULDN'T know it. And while i have some advantages, both as a former children's chorus singer and as the daughter of a mother who has so many Christmas music CDs she could probably listen continuously through Advent without repeats, I'm also pretty sure* I've heard it in the local radio station's All Christmas All December programming. And they're normally AdultContemp, so pretty Blandly Typical imho.

(*i try to tune it out, 6 hours a day 5 days a week is way beyond too much, but coworker likes the noise and no other station comes in as well...)

[sovay]

Here from DW Network, hope you don't mind another opinion?

Not at all! I was canvassing. Pleased to meet you.

Californian born and raised, and In the Bleak Midwinter is such a Regular Carol to me that I'm a bit surprised there are people (who celebrate Christmas or otherwise listen to Christmas Music) who WOULDN'T know it.

That's useful to hear about, especially the mainstream radio presence. (Which does sound like a lot of Christmas radio.) I listen mostly to college and folk stations, but the latter could certainly be a vector at the right time of year.

[gwynnega]

Another California data point: "In the Bleak Midwinter" sounds only vaguely familiar to me. (I did sing a lot of Christmas carols at my grade school.)

[sovay]

Another California data point: "In the Bleak Midwinter" sounds only vaguely familiar to me. (I did sing a lot of Christmas carols at my grade school.)

Good to know! (My grade school held a solstice assembly. In the spring we went Maying. I think only not being in session in summer prevented it from going for the full quarter-years.)

[umadoshi]

a signature half pastrami, half corned beef sandwich

My brain is trying to simultaneously picture this as a two-layered sandwich with both meats on the whole thing and as a single-layered sandwich with one meat per half. Clearly, I must ask which it is.

I sort of grew up aware of "In the Bleak Midwinter" without really singing it or learning the words, and then when I started more regularly putting Christmas music on in the last several years it became more familiar, since it's on at least a few of the albums I listen to. But for some reason, this year the lyric "if I were a wise man, I would do my part" hit me hard...with hilarity. ("If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb"--fine and good! "I would do my part"--hilariously vague.) So naturally I've been intermittently earwormed with it.

[sovay]

My brain is trying to simultaneously picture this as a two-layered sandwich with both meats on the whole thing and as a single-layered sandwich with one meat per half. Clearly, I must ask which it is.

Hee. It's double-layered; it's a a quite thick sandwich. But I like the image of it being deli-polarized.

But for some reason, this year the lyric "if I were a wise man, I would do my part" hit me hard...with hilarity. ("If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb"--fine and good! "I would do my part"--hilariously vague.) So naturally I've been intermittently earwormed with it.

Fair! Not one of Rossetti's more lyrically shining moments. (I would bet almost anything it resulted from working backward from the last line, but there were other rhymes.)

note to self: come back to this

[minoanmiss]

Yeah, the Holst setting is not the most commonly sung one (it's too lovely).

Re: note to self: come back to this

[sovay]

Yeah, the Holst setting is not the most commonly sung one (it's too lovely).

Definitely come back to this!