Polish Jewish Cabaret: In a hoyz vu men veynt un men lakht (In a house where one cries and laughs) - Yiddish song about a brothel.

UPDATE: Vivi Lachs sent me pdfs of a magazine called Lider Magazin, published in New York at the turn of the century, and I just found in Issue #9 a text for this song which is the basis for what was sung to Ruth Rubin! It's too bad the song sheet is so torn up but here it is (click it for larger view):



Previous update: Avery Gosfield recently gave me a new word for this kind of song, it's a contrafactum: "the substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music." I've been calling them parodies, but parody to me implies humor or sarcasm, and in this case, neither is present. She also used 'canta si come' - so thanks, Avery!

Here's the video:



Or click below to buy the song or the whole album (In Odess) at Skylark Productions:

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In the 1950s ethnomusicologist and Yiddish enthusiast Ruth Rubin recorded many 10" tape reels of Yiddish songs, some now vanishingly obscure. One of the "lost" songs from the Itzik Zielonek collection was in the Rubin collection; it was sung by a Mrs. Dillman in the 1950s in Montreal. The tapes reside at the New York Public Library but it was Lorin Sklamberg at YIVO who kindly sent me the a capella verse-and-a-half on this reel.

Itzik has it as "In a hoyz vu men veynt un men lakht" but the Ruth Rubin recording has: "In dem hoyz..." The title means: "In a house where there's tears and laughter" (or "In the house where people cry and laugh"). There was supposedly a recording in 1912 by L. Braun on a Syrena Grand Record, In der haus wu men weint un men lacht, but I've never heard it.

I recognized the tune but couldn't remember the name, so I turned to one of those "name this tune" internet services and turns out it's from a 1905 song by Egbert Van Alstyne (original words: Harry H. Williams) called "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree." I wonder if perhaps this Yiddish song became so thoroughly lost because this tune is so completely un-Jewish and its sweet, sentimental affect is so bizarre paired with these dark lyrics.

Being so Gilded Age and goyish, the song is not typical of the Zhelonek collection. Aviva Enoch and I recorded it in March 2013 and Randy Kloko added baritone on the chorus.

The version printed by Zhelonek is about a whorehouse. I wonder which came first? Here are his lyrics, which do not scan very well. I was especially pained by the word tsuzamen (together) which should have the accent on the second syllable but which fits in this chorus only with the accent on the last syllable.

Just think, now, people, how life goes for mankind:
One rushes around, plagued,
Happy is the one who is blessed
But one doesn't think about what will happen later
You should now think, and pay attention
to one thing: don't send your wife and child to that place...

In a house where one cries and laughs
I once spent a whole night
I saw women and men together there
In a house where there's laughter and tears

I went into a house, a young girl I see sitting, very sad
I went to her, she cried many tears in front of me
She begged me: "Young man, save me! I don't want to be here
I was deceived away from my home by a young charlatan
And here I suffer from hunger and pain."

I became acquainted with a woman, she was young and pretty then
Late at night I fooled around with her in a dancehall
When we sat by a little table and drank champagne
I wanted to leave, she said to me:
"No, young man, you'll be with me today."

I ask her, "Tell me, dear woman,
Where did you come from, to end up here?"
And see how the woman doesn't answer,
In her eyes one sees a lament:
"I had a husband and two children
Things were good for me then
I parted from him and had nowhere to go
I was forced, a poor thing, to come here."

The version Mrs. Dillman sang has a few English words in it and is more literally about a (tenement) house in which there are happy people and sad people.

In the house where one cries and laughs
Where the landlord comes into the tenement to get his rent
And it makes people sweat
Where the greenhorn quickly becomes ?
And the rooms are as dark as in a jail
From the basement to the roof, each gets a punishment
In the house...

Sunday the tenement house is noisy
On each floor it's a different scene
On the first floor a girl plays piano
On the second floor a sick person grows still
On the third floor a bride is getting ready
On the fourth floor a corpse is lying
The bride is taken to the wedding canopy
The corpse is taken to the grave

In the house where there's crying and laughter
So much trouble, day and night,
They wish the bride good luck
The corpse never comes back
In the house...