Polish Jewish Cabaret: Slutsk mayn shtetele: mp3 for download and sheet music

UPDATE: Reposted to add Youtube video I made with Ken Bloom on guitar. We did it live so by the time I realized I made a mistake it was too late, he was gone.


Slutsk, oh Slutsk, mayn shtetele: this is one of the songs in the Zhelonek collection which is still very well-known and often sung. He transcribed the recording by Herman Fenigstein.

I thought you might be interested to see what the manuscript looks like, the one Aaron Lebedeff submitted to the United States Copyright Office (click to enlarge). This is pretty typical for what I find in the Library of Congress archive. It includes a second verse which is not in the Fenigstein version.

---

---

Here's my translation from the Yiddish:

Slutsk my little town, how I long for you
You lie deep in my heart
A cradle on a little string, a broken bed
Oh, how I long for you, Slutsk my little town

Every Friday night my mother blessed the candles
and father went to the studyhouse.
He would bring home strangers,
and he'd sing table songs, very beautifully

Slutsk my little town, how I long for you
You lie deep in my heart
A cradle on a little string, a broken bed
Oh, how I long for you, Slutsk my little town

I remember my little town now,
where I first saw the light, where I was born,
where I was raised, where as a child I went to kheyder