I began compiling a list of Yiddish Anarchist songs and spread out to include a number of songs I like. If you want, I plan on including more in here over time and will eventually write the histories of each of these songs. Meanwhile there are a bunch more which could be found by searching Daniel Kahn's work. In addition, I may not have gotten the translations perfectly for all of them, so please leave comments on things I can correct. Enjoy!
In Kampf ( In Struggle)
Hated are we, and driven from our homes,
Tortured and persecuted, even to blood;
And wherefore? 'Tis because we love the poor,
The masses of mankind, who starve for food.
We are shot down, and on the gallows hanged,
Robbed of our lives and freedom without ruth,
Because for the enslaved and for the poor
We are demanding liberty and truth.
But we will not be frightened from our path
By darksome prisons or by tyranny;
We must awake humanity from sleep,
Yea, we must make our brothers glad and free.
Secure us fast with fetters made of iron,
Tear us like beasts of blood till life departs,
'Tis but our bodies that you will destroy,
Never the sacred spirit in our hearts.
You cannot kill it, tyrants of the earth!
Our spirit is a plant immortal, fair;
Its petals, sweet of scent and rich of hue,
Are scattered wide, are blooming everywhere.
In thinking men and women now they bloom,
In souls that love the light and righteousness.
As they strive on toward duty's sacred goal,
Nature herself doth their endeavor bless—
To liberate the poor and the enslaved
Who suffer now from cold and hunger's blight,
And to create for all humanity
A world that shall be free, that shall be bright;
A world where tears no longer shall be shed,
A world where guiltless blood no more shall flow,
And men and women, like clear-shining stars,
With courage and with love shall be aglow.
You may destroy us, tyrants! 'Twill be vain.
Time will bring on new fighters strong as we;
For we shall battle ever, on and on,
Nor cease to strive till all the world is free!
In the Streets (In Ale Gasn)
Everywhere that you go
the streets are full of strikes
boys and girls, everyone
are talking higher wages
boys and girls, everyone
are talking higher wages
Enough of breaking backs
and still having to borrow
call a strike comrades
let's free ourselves
call a strike comrades
let's free ourselves
Brothers and sisters, all gather round
together we are strong enough to bring the tsar down
Hey hey down with the police
Down with the autocracy in Russia
Hey Hey Daloy Politsey
Down with the autocracy in Russia
Sisters and brothers we can do this together
Bury Nikolai along with his mother
Hey hey down with the police
Down with the autocracy in Russia
Hey Hey Daloy Politsey
Down with the autocracy in Russia
Only yesterday, he pushed a garbage cart
and now he's become a capitalist
Hey hey down with the police
Down with the autocracy in Russia
Hey Hey Daloy Politsey
Down with the autocracy in Russia
How Long oh How Long?
Rent Money (Dire Gelt)
" Chorus:
Rent Money and oi oi oi
Rent Money and oi God
Rent Money and policemen
Rent Money one must pay!
The landlord's lackey arrives
Takes off his little hat
And if we pay no rent money
He hangs out a dispossession notice
Along comes the Landlord
With his thick stick
And if we pay no rent money
He puts the beds out in the street!
Why should I pay rent?
The stove is broken
Why should I pay rent?
When I have nothing to cook with
Barikadn:
“Fathers, mothers and children
Build barricades
And groups of workers
Walk about in the streets.
At dawn, Father left home
To go to the factory.
He will not come back at all
To the room today.
The children know very well
That Father will not come.
He is out on the street,
Carrying his gun.
Mother also went out
To the street to sell apples.
The pots and pans
Stand orphaned in the kitchen.
There will be no supper,
Hannaleh tells everyone,
Because Mother has gone out
To help Father.
Suddenly: crack! A bullet
Pierces the little room,
Missing Hannaleh
And leaving a hole in the wall.
If that’s how things are, says Hannaleh,
Then, children, come with me!
Motye, bring the basket.
Meyerke, bring the table.
We’ll bring the bureau drawers
And the old barrel.
We’ll build barricades here
In the middle of the neighborhood.
The barricade stands.
Nobody stays in the room.
The police pass by running;
Children throw stones onto the street.
Supper? What supper?
The cannons roar.
The children of the house
Help their parents.
Fathers, mothers, children
Build barricades
And groups of workers
Walk about in the streets.”
March of the Unemployed (Arbetlose Marsch)
"One two three four,
Yes, we are the unemployed!
Since months we haven't heard
the sound of tools in the factory,
they lie cold and forgotten,
the rust eats them alive.
So we roam along the streets,
like the rich doing nothing,
like the rich doing nothing.
One two three four,
Yes, we are the unemployed!
Without cloths, without home
our bed consists of soil
if someone has a meal
we do share everything
we drink water like the rich do wine
we down it we down it
One two three four
Yes, we are the unemployed!
For years we have worked so hard!
and created more and more
Houses, Palaces, Cities and Countries
for a bunch of wastrel
What is our reward for this?
Hunger, misery and unemployment
Hunger, misery and unemployment
One two three four
so now we do march!
Unemployed, step by step
and sing our song the song
of a new world where free people are living freely unemployed is not a single hand
in this new free country
in this new free country."
Oh you Foolish Little Zionists
Oh you foolish little zionists
with your utopian mentality
you'd better go down to the factory
and learn the workers reality
you want to take us to Jerusalem
so we can die as a nation
we'd rather stay in the diaspora
and fight for our liberation
To the Bund (Tsum Bund)
Beneath the salt sea of humanity's weeping
A terrible chasm abides
It couldn't be darker, it couldn't be deeper
It's stained with a bloody red tide
And thousands of years have created this chasm
Of piety, hatred, and pain
And for thousands of years all humanity's weeping
Flows like a limitless rain
So much of this sea has been filled with the sorrows
Endured by the suffering Jews
But only the tears of the poor ones are bloody
The rich cry as clear as the dew
Yes only the worker, the pauper, the beggar
Belong to the bloody abyss
While those you call “brother,” the rich and the greedy,
Fly high overhead in their bliss
The ocean flows over and floods out the levees
There isn't a hero in sight
Yes where are the ones that will stand at the ready
To dive in the chasm and fight
Yes, who will at last free the worker from slavery,
Give hunger its final relief?
And who will be guiding the pathway to freedom,
To brotherhood, justice and peace?
The children of wealth, the enlightened, the clergy,
"Into Zion!" the call the Hebrews
We’ve heard this old story before from our enemies
“A ghetto for the eternal Jew”
With Zion we answer the prayers of our fathers
From deep in their graves they must call
While souls who are living are hungry and crying
To them we are deaf as the wall
Messiah and Jewry are both dead and buried
Another messiah is come
"The new Jewish worker" the banner will carry
To signal that justice is done
The world will be freed and be healed by this hero,
Who dives to the root of its wound.
In Russia, in Vilna, in Poland all hail now
The Great Jewish Worker’s Bund!
Di Shvue (Song of the Jewish Bund)
(Lyrics Included)
The Tailor Song (Utt Da Zay)
This is how the tailor stitches
This is how he sews so well! (Repeated with a harmony)
He sews and sews the whole week long,
And earns a guilder with a hole in the middle. (Repeated with a harmony)
This is how the tailor stitches
This is how he sews so well! (Repeated with a harmony)
A tailor sews and sews and sews
Eats the plague but not any bread! (Repeated with a harmony)
This is how the tailor stitches
This is how he sews so well! (Repeated with a harmony)…"
"10 Brothers"
Ten brother we have been. we did trade with linen one of us has died
and then we were nine
Chorus:
Oj, Schmerl, with the fiddle
Tewje with the bass
do you play me a song
in the middle of the alley
oj oj oj oj oj
oj oj oj oj oj
do you play me a song
in the middle of the gas (original line is "in the alley")
We were nine brothers and we traded in cargo. One died and eight were left...
We were eight brothers and we traded in candles...One died and seven were left...
We were seven brothers and we traded in baked goods...One died and six were left...
We were six brothers and we traded in stockings...One died and five were left...
We were five brothers and we traded in beer...One died and four were left...
We were four brothers and we traded in lead...One died and three were left...
We were three brothers and we traded in hay...One died and two were left...
We were two brothers and we traded in bones...
(Original last verse)
I was one brother and I traded in candles. I die every day because I have nothing to eat.
The
song was altered in the concentration camps-- the yiddish word “alley”
sounds like the word gas. An alternative last verse was added to
original:
One brother I remain
whom shall I cry with?
The others have been murdered
Who shall remember their names?
Yidl with the fiddle
Moyshe with the bass
hear my last song
I am led to the gas.
Mayn Rue Platz (Song about the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire)
Don't look for me where myrtles are green.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where lives wither at the machines,
There is my resting place.
Don't look for me where birds sing.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
I am a slave where chains ring,
There is my resting place.
Don't look for me where fountains spray.
You will not find me there, my beloved.
Where tears flow and teeth gnash,
There is my resting place.
And if you love me with true love,
So come to me, my good beloved,
And cheer my gloomy heart
And make sweet my resting place.
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – you have to get up early
you have to get up early, pour water onto your fingertips,
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – pour water onto your finger tips
pour water onto your fingertips, say the first morning prayer
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – say the first morning prayer
say the first morning prayer, go to synagogue
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – go to synagogue
go to the synagogue, put on your tallis and tephillin
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – put on your tallis and tephillin
put on your tallis and tephillin,
dedicate your soul to the Single and Unknown One
dedicate your soul to the Single and Unknown One
and never close your eyes
stay alert and conscious,
don’t take anything for an ultimate truth,
question everything,
never get into any mental trap
never get into any conceptual conundrum,
this is what Lenin teaches us to do,
this is how old uncle Lacan teaches us to behave,
read Zizek, translate ‘Borderline’,
be rash enough to change what wants to be changed
and to create by yourself what wants to be created
we don’t have to wait for other people to do our job for us
yesterday it was too early, tomorrow it will be too late, do it here and now
think of yourself in terms of class struggle
concrete analyses of concrete circumstances
the feeling of the moment
put aside all sentiments
all those lyuli da lyuli
they are like sweet pills for the ideologically retarded
and we, we look around without any rose-colored glasses,
and without black-tinted decadent glasses either
it is possible to be both a realist and an optimist
it is possible to wait for the future
but not to see dreams, not to tell fortunes
just to create your fortune by yourself
by means of a direct action
which is sometimes unnoticeable
but this is what makes you immortal
our ancestors knew this, and they won
we shall follow them and liberate ourselves,
and songs shall we sing, and vodka shall we drink
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – vodka shall we drink
ekh lyuli lyuli da lyuli – lechaim shall we drink
--------------------------------
שיר פועלים באידיש - MAKHNES GEYEN “Forward, Let Us Move!”
(lyrics included in the video)
'S Brent “It Burns”
It burns, brothers, It Burns!
Oh, our poor shtetl - God forbid! - Fire!
Evil winds with their thunder
tug, break and ruffle,
stronger the wild flames,
everything burns all around!
And you stand look around you
with crossed arms,
and you stand and look at you-
our shtetl burns!
It is burning! Brothers, it burns!
Oh, our poor shtetl - God forbid! - Fire!
There have been the tongues of fire
engulfed- the whole shtetl
and the evil winds rage
our shtetl burns!
It is burning! Brothers, it burns!
It can - God forbid! - The moment come,
that our city together with us
is through the flames to ashes.
What remains - such as after a battle,
Only bare black walls!
It is burning! Brothers, it burns!
The aid can only come through you!
When your shtetl is too costly
fetches the bucket put out the fire,
clear with your own blood,
proves that you can do it!
with arms crossed.
If not, brethren, clear the fire
our shtetl burns!
The song of the Collective Farmer
Girls Sewing at the Machines
