Rumania, Rumania (Romania, Romania)

This classic Yiddish song was written by Aaron Lebedeff in the 1930s, and it has been a staple of klezmer music ever since. There is a 1947 recording of Lebedeff toward the bottom of this post.  But this is sort of a bait and switch, as I have also used this post as an opportunity to insert some unexpected Romanian rock music in between. There are five of them, but feel free to skip down to the rest of the Yiddish clips.

The Maxwell Street Klezmer Band is (obviously) from Chicago. They played at both of our family's B'nai Mitzva, but not with Cantor Roytman:

For some reason, contemporary Romanians seem to love American music of the '50s and '60s. One of these is probably enough, but they are sort of fascinating:

There are many more of these, including an Elvis imitation, a Tina Turner cover, a C&W song, and one with a conga line.

Back to Yiddish. 

This clip of the famous Barry Sisters has an English translation, but it isn't completely accurate. In the first verse, for example, a karnatzl is a garlicky beef sausage, not a carnation. (If you think about it, klezmer music is a lot more likely to rhapsodize about food than flowers.)

 

Comments

[Red State Kulander]

All I got off the cuff is "Stereo Love" by Edward Maya/Vika Jigulina.