און מיר זינגען זיך אַ ליד פֿון אַ לאַנד, אַ וועלט, אַ נײַע
So a couple of weeks ago ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gaudior invited me to a Yiddish sing being held this afternoon at the Somerville Community Growing Center and it turned out to be run by the Boston Workmen's Circle and I knew about half the songs in their packet and had a wonderful time even with the ones I didn't and the upshot is that I kind of accidentally auditioned into their community chorus. Which was not how I was expecting this afternoon to go, but I will very definitely take it. I felt I had a somewhat fragmentary answer when asked where I learned my Yiddish songs: my mother sang some as lullabies to me even though she did not herself know Yiddish and we had Theodore Bikel's records in the house when I was growing up and then I got to college and discovered the Klezmatics and last year skygiants threw Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird at me and in the meantime I found and listened to a lot of different things on my own time and occasionally performed them professionally. I got Partisans of Vilna (1988) from selkie. It's a folk tradition. I interact with those. I have pointed out to Tiny Wittgenstein that they often come in fragments.
Afterward I had very nice dinner and conversation with Gaudior and walked home by way of Gracie's and a cone of cardamom and honey cornbread ice cream. I just got back to the internet.
Look at this kraken.
gaudior invited me to a Yiddish sing being held this afternoon at the Somerville Community Growing Center and it turned out to be run by the Boston Workmen's Circle and I knew about half the songs in their packet and had a wonderful time even with the ones I didn't and the upshot is that I kind of accidentally auditioned into their community chorus. Which was not how I was expecting this afternoon to go, but I will very definitely take it. I felt I had a somewhat fragmentary answer when asked where I learned my Yiddish songs: my mother sang some as lullabies to me even though she did not herself know Yiddish and we had Theodore Bikel's records in the house when I was growing up and then I got to college and discovered the Klezmatics and last year skygiants threw Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird at me and in the meantime I found and listened to a lot of different things on my own time and occasionally performed them professionally. I got Partisans of Vilna (1988) from selkie. It's a folk tradition. I interact with those. I have pointed out to Tiny Wittgenstein that they often come in fragments.Afterward I had very nice dinner and conversation with Gaudior and walked home by way of Gracie's and a cone of cardamom and honey cornbread ice cream. I just got back to the internet.
Look at this kraken.
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Thank you!
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I mean, it's an invitation to a chorus, not a recording contract, but I'll see what I can do.
I would particularly give an incisor to hear you sing Shtiler, but we'd have to do it in an open field surrounded by running water at high noon.
Do you have one near you? (Is it going to wake anything up?)
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COME SING IN YIDDISH.
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I am glad to have introduced you.
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Thank you! It was a startlingly nice follow-up to an already really nice experience.
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It was!
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On the question of answering how one learned songs: yeah, it's so often fragmentary, isn't it? That's the folk tradition, as you say! Years ago at dance camp, when I was at that point the only twenty-something joining in with the people of my parents' generation singing Stan Rogers and rounds and Green Grow The Rushes and sea shanties at the end-of-session party. One of them asked where I had learned all these, and I could only stare at her and stammer something incoherent -- I don't know? I just learned them? They're just songs I know? My parents and my parents' records and the Fireside Book of Folk Songs and summer camp and filk circles and a good ear for joining in, that's where, but it's hard to cobble that together in the spur of the moment. One learns them as one does, however one does, and adds them to the store of songs that can spill out when something prompts them to come forth, that's all.
At any rate, I am very glad that you have an outlet for singing Yiddish songs on a regular basis, and letting that particular folk tradition stretch its wings in your life some more.
Also, that is a very excellent kraken.
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Thank you! It was completely unexpected and really great!
One of them asked where I had learned all these, and I could only stare at her and stammer something incoherent -- I don't know? I just learned them? They're just songs I know? My parents and my parents' records and the Fireside Book of Folk Songs and summer camp and filk circles and a good ear for joining in, that's where, but it's hard to cobble that together in the spur of the moment.
Right! I used to read Rise Up Singing for fun when I was in elementary school. I still every now and then hear a song for the first time and recognize the lyrics even though I never knew what it sounded like. Do people not just do that?
At any rate, I am very glad that you have an outlet for singing Yiddish songs on a regular basis, and letting that particular folk tradition stretch its wings in your life some more.
Thank you. I'm really looking forward to it.
Also, that is a very excellent kraken.
It was basically the first thing I saw when I got home and looked at the internet. I consider it a continuing omen of the day.
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You've just reminded me that I bought Partisans of Vilna when it came out, so I must still have it somewhere (though my copy may be on LP, and my turntable is not currently hooked up).
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It makes me really happy.
You've just reminded me that I bought Partisans of Vilna when it came out, so I must still have it somewhere (though my copy may be on LP, and my turntable is not currently hooked up).
It still counts! I recommend it as an album.
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It really was!
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Forgive me for asking for a translation of your title.
My maternal Great Grandmother spoke Yiddish, but....... :o(
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Of course! Un mir zingen zikh a lid / Far a land, a velt, a naye: "And we sing ourselves a song / For a land, a world, a new one." (The next line which I did not include for reasons of space is וווּ עס וווינען מענטשן פֿרײַע: Vu es voynen mentshn fraye: "Where free people live.")
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Sounds good to me. Shame my people never made it.
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As they do.
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Very good boundaries. Well-demarcated with suckers.
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You should! The next Yiddish sing is the evening of September 27th at the Boston Workmen's Circle Center. The couple who run them were very clear that knowledge of either Yiddish songs or Yiddish is not required.
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That reminds me that I've been starting to learn this wonderful, macaronic English/Yiddish/Hebrew song that I feel you would appreciate. I've only heard it sung by one living person -- the late, talented Jerry Epstein. I had relegated it to the category of, "Damn, that was hilarious, I should have learned it while Jerry was alive." Welp, turns out that it's also on an album on Spotify, just when I never thought I would hear it again.
It's called, "Say, O'Brien" and the only problem with performing it is that the number of people who I know who (a) will hold still to listen to me sing, (b) understand Yiddish and Hebrew, and (c) would find the jokes funny, is probably in the single digits. If I ever perform it, I'm going to have to travel with subtitle cards that I hold up when I sing the Yiddish/Hebrew lines. I still might. It's just that good.
I guess what I'm trying to say is: sometime, would you mind checking my pronunciation on the Yiddish lines?