A. Lebedeff & A. Olshanetsky - What can you mach? [1925]

[wis78rpm]

Kapelye reinterpreted this song and did it justice. "Vot ken you makh? Es iz Amerike!"

[jonjamg]

Didn't realise it was Alexander Olshanetsky no wonder it sounds so good! Brilliant!

[mcfrdmn]

Excellent performance!

[MegaAntim]

da da Romania for ever in America con la musica Moldava

[alexanderlinden]

Ich hob es lib oib er is take geworren a shaigets! :(

[alontas]

I'm also goy, but since my teenage days I read a lot of Scholem Aleichem books, and it was very interesting for me to know that the is not "a" yiddish language, that is, an official thing, but that in Rumania they speak a differente yiddish than in Ucrania, or a different in Prague that in Krakau or Posen. There are many dialects or ways of speaking quite different yiddishes, I guess.

[nilinu]

@alontas Your are not quite correct about there being 'different' Yiddish languages.

There were only differences in pronunciation in different parts of Eastern and Central Europe, principally northern and southern dialects. There were also

Judeo Spanish, Judeo Arabic etc, but these were not Yiddish but Hebrew based languages.

[Corrie121]

Great post! Most enjoyable.

Thank you for sharing and grateful thanks to sasha 365i for the translation. It is very humorous.

[omnia2005]

In fact I'm goy from Poland but I realy like yiddish music. It started few years ago during Klezmer jazz festival in Cracow . Your culture is so amazing.Music is so rich in sound, Especially fiddle. And truly thanks for this translation. Simple russian words are piece of cake for me.

[Cantormatis]

@omnia2005 Glad to hear that- we did, after all, live side by side, in relative peace and harmony, for nearly seven hundred years.

[nilinu]

What a terrific recording! Truly the authentic voice of our Yiddish heritage.

[bellbonne]

A grosse dank for the Yiddish lyric transliteration. I am trying hard to learn this language before it becomes extinct!

[avginkel]

Try to put a German accent in your Yiddish. Too many times I hear a Slavic accent or simply a dead lifeless sound in Yiddish songs sung nowadays. The R should be pronounced soft and the KH more like a softer G. Listen to Lebedeff, that´s the way he pronounces it.

[bellbonne]

Thanks for the suggestion. My teacher, a Lithuanian, despairs of my Galitzianer accent. Can't help it--that's all I heard as a child and I regard my Grandma of blessed memory as the ultimate authority.

Thanks for the suggestion. My teacher tells me I have a Galitzianer accent. That's what I heard as a child.

[grego310]

Oh pish posh-nothing wrong with speaking Yiddish like a "Southerner" ;) I too took a Yiddish class with a Litvisher teacher, and coming from mixed heritage(Litvak and Ukrainish/Galitzianer) I would mix things up and while at first he would reprimand me, he soon got used to the fact that I wasn't going to conform to "Standard"/Varshaser Yiddish!

[Cantormatis]

@grego310 Standard Yiddish is almost an invention of YIVO, not a real spoken language. Most of the population of Warsaw at the end of the 19th century was from somewhere else in Poland. "Litvish" was absolutely an insult among Polish Jewry, as much as Galitizianer was among others. Regionalisms abounded, but the "galitzianer" accent was popular for the Yiddish musical stage.

[grego310]

But if you need to listen to Litvisher/Poylisher Yiddish do not listen to this song sung by Olshanetsky--being from Odessa(SW Ukraine) his Yiddish is very similar to Galitzianer(FRImer Yid as opposed to saying FRUmer Yid)

[sasha365i]

To come to America, I took great trouble.

I thought I'd become a rabbi and grow myself a beard.

I had two beautiful peyes, like every religious Jew.

But in the end I had no beard and my peyes were also gone.

Oh, you ask me how this can be?

The answer is, my dear friend:

What can you do, it's America!

This is how you get dressed up in this country!

What can you do? It's America!

Even a Jew looks just like a goy!

[sasha365i]

You don't see any trace of peyes,

here, all the girls wear them!

What can you do? It's America!

In America, that's just how it is!

Here in America everything's upside down.

The men shave their hair and their wived grow beards.

What can you do? It's America!

In America, and bol'she nye tchevo [Russian, bol'she ne tovo, That's all]!

[sasha365i]

In Europe you marry off a girl at a very young age,

and afterward, they have a kid exactly a year later.

In America it's different, they really take their time.

Weddings happen later, but the kids come earlier!

Oh, you ask me how this can be?

The answer, is my dear friend:

What can you do? It's America!

Here all everything can happen, I tell you.

What can you do? It's America!

Everything here is done in a hurry!

[sasha365i]

Here everyone's looking surely to save on their expenses,

So they have a wedding, together with the bris.

What can you do? It's America!

In America, what can you do?

When the bride and groom leave the wedding canopy to go home,

there's already cradle there, with the kid ready too!

What can you do? It's America!

It's America and that's all!

[sasha365i]

Vet ir mir fregn: S'taytsh? Vi ken dos zayn?

Der terets derfun iz, libe fraynt mayn':

Vot ken you makh? Es iz Amerike!

Do in land do putzt men zikh azoy.

Vot ken you makh? Es iz Amerike!

Afile der yid hot dem ponim mitn goy.

Az fun peyes do zet men bay keynem nit keyn shpor,

Do trogn zikh di peyelech ale meydlekh gor.

Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike,

S'iz Amerike, un vot ken you makh?

[sasha365i]

1.

Keyn Amerike tzu kumen, hob ikh keyn mi geshport,

kh'hob gedenkt a rov tzu vern un farlosn zikh a bord.

Kh'hob gehat tzvey sheyne peyes, vi yeder frumer yid

Tzum sof onshtot a bord hob ikh di peyes oykhet nit.

[bellbonne]

Love this haunting song--wish my yiddish was better--can anyone translate or transliterate the lyrics????

[sasha365i]

Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike. Do ken pasirn altz, zog ikh aykh [akh], Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike, Az do aylt men zikh dokh mit a yeder zakh. Do zukht men tzu seyvn ekspenses af gevis, Derfar makht men di khassene tzuzamen mitn bris! Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike! S'iz Amerike un vot ken you mach! Az khosn-kale fun der khupe aheym nor me geyt Iz shoyn dortn a vigele mit a kind oykh ongegreyt! Vot ken you makh? Es iz Amerike! Oy Amerike i bol'she nichego

[sasha365i]

Az do in Amerike iz altzding farkert,

Di mener - zey sheyvn zikh, un bay di vayber shprotzn berd.

Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike!

Oy, Amerike, un bol'she nye tchevo!

In Yurop makht men khasene yunge meydlekh gor,

Un nakher hobn zey kinder, vi es firt zikh punkt tzum yor,

In Amerike iz gor andersh, me nemt zikh zayt on shir

Me hot khassene do shpeter, nor di kinder hot men frier

Vet ir mir fregn: S'taytsh? Vi ken dos zayn?

Der terets derfun iz, libe fraynt mayn':

[bellbonne]

Thank you Sasha--most enlightening!

[alexsas2645]

At the end of the song is an expression in Russian - AМЕРИКЕ И БОЛЬШЕ НИЧЕГО! Аmerike i bolshe nichego! America and nothing else!

Never heard before these performers, but the way their Yiddish sounds they are Russian (Ukrainian).

*The Jews from the Ukraine and Russia...A breed by itself! The cream of the cream of performers, musicians and poets on both sides of the ocean.*

The best comment.

Thanks! Great piece!

[trabanul]

Thank you for posting this rare beauty.

[sos4701]

What a SHAME to sing such a song!

Such a פורק עול G-d is definitely not proud!

What do you think? the Torah was not given to the American jews?

[blakewind]

Can you translate what is sung here? My Yiddish is poor.

[Romanisipunctum]

The Yddish music from NY comes primarily from the Romanian Jews. It was in Iasi that the oldest Yddish theater was and it was in Bucuresti that the first recording of Yddish music happened.

In NY alone, Rumania, Rumania and Basarabia were songs about Romania very famous, and beautiful.

Also, the ROMANIAN music styles of: doina, sarba, joc, and HORA, were integral part of klezmer music. The Israeli anthem is on a Romanian folk song melody from the region of Moldova called: Cucuruz, grau marunt.

[hswatnik]

cool

[zwerskij]

The Jews from the Ukraine and Russia...A breed by itself! The cream of the cream of performers, musicians and poets on both sides of the ocean.

We all have to make a joint effort to preserve the pearls of the past. Foe our own sake and for the sake of generation(s) to come.

[retrotor]

I couldn't agree with you more! Thank you very much for your comment!

[zwerskij]

and thank you for making the life of many of us in Berlin much brighter. I have missed A. Lebedeff & A. Olshanetsky songs while in the USA back in the 1970s and 1980s. Please stay fit and happy.

[dybbuk4640]

so fabulous...so yiddish...so full of passion...ach what a voice...wish more of him were available

[Tantfarbrorn]

Thank You for the song!

Very nice voice and a big ego too. :-)

Once upon a time I had this record and an other one called Wayt nur oyf meidl but now both have been cracked.

[dhyrvcx]

Can you post an English translation?

Thank you!

Ron Perry, Jerusalm

[avginkel]

An idea: why don´t you put a video of Jewish ghetto scenes around 1910-1920?

[cascol]

The video is nothing, but the song........oy vey!!

[zwerskij]

Critisizing is easy. Why not to make one by yourself, haver?

[cascol]

It wasn't a criticism. It was a statement of fact. The video is nothing, just a still picture of Lebedeff and Olshanetsky. But the song is wonderful.

[zwerskij]

One has to start somewhere, and the start is good: many of us has never seen Lebedeff´s and Olshanetsky´s photograph. Just think positive, please.

Shabbat Shalom from Berlin!

[joeocho88]

1925! And so well made for that time or perhaps it was the TALENT!

[albertdiner]

a great voice, great yiddish songs.