When I first heard Roumania Roumania, without reading a
translation and knowing nothing of its composer, I thought it wonderfully
upbeat and it made me smile, then it became an earworm. It was written and composed by Aaron Lebedeff,
sometimes Lebedoff (1873–1960), who was born in Belarus and became a notable
stage performer. He was witness to dark
days for European Jewry, although after some peripatetic years learning his
craft he had the good fortune to arrive in New York in 1920, where he achieved
considerable success.
Roumania Roumania was originally
released in 1925 though Lebedeff made a further version in 1941 and another in
1947. It was his most popular song. Looking into it a little more though after I
read an English translation of the Yiddish, I started to think it might not be
quite the sunny song it appears on the surface. It seems to play on clichés of fun-loving
Romanian Jews eating and making merry, but there is an edge provided by the
history of Jewish persecution in Europe.
Here are the words; I cannot vouch for the strict accuracy of the
translation but the sense is clear:
Oh! Roumania, Roumania, Roumania
…
Once there was a land, sweet and lovely.
Oh! Roumania, Roumania, Roumania …
Once there was a land, sweet and fine.
To live there is a pleasure;
What your heart desires you can get;
A mămăligă, a pastrami, a karnatzl,
And a glass of wine, aha … !
Ay, in Roumania life is so good;
No one knows of care;
Everywhere they’re drinking wine -
And having a bite of kashtaval.
Hay, digadi dam …
Ay, in Roumania life is so good;
No one knows of worry.
They drink wine, though it’s late;
And have a bite of kastrovet.
Hay, digadi dam …
Oh, my, help, I’m going crazy!
I care only for brinze and mămăligă
I dance and jump up to the ceiling
When I eat a patlazhele.
Dzing ma, tay yidldi tam …
What a pleasure, what could be better!
Oh, the only delight is Roumanian wine.
Roumanians drink wine
And eat mămăligă;
And he who kisses his own wife,
Is the one who’s crazy.
Zets, dzing ma, tay yidl di tam …
“May salvation come from heaven …
“
Stop and kiss the cook, Khaye,
Dressed in rags and tatters;
She makes a pudding for the Sabbath.
Zets! Tay ti didl di tam …
Moyshe Khayim comes along
And takes away the best part;
Moyshe Khayim, Borukh Shmil –
Tickle her on the sly.
Zets! Tay tidl di tam …
And the girl pouts, alas,
Seems unwilling, but allows it.
Tshu!
It’s good to kiss a lass
When she’s sweet sixteen;
When one kisses an old maid,
She begins to grumble.
Zets! Tay yidl di dam …
What a pleasure, what could be better!
Oh, the only delight is Roumanian wine.
As depicted here, Romania is a
never-never land, sweet, lovely, fine: a Garden of Eden in fact, where good
food and drink flow and there are no cares.
The song gets faster as we imagine the singer becoming more and more
drunk, spouting gibberish and getting frisky, kissing any lady – even the
ragged cook will do, though a young girl is better – who comes into his orbit,
apart from his wife, and jumping higher and higher in his exuberance. And when the kissing is done, there is still
wine.
The carefree image contrasts with
the real situation in Europe, and while there may well be an element of
nostalgia, there is a greater one of irony, because Jewish life in the region
was never at any time as sunny as painted here and only got worse as the
century progressed. Even though Lebedeff
was in New York, he could understand the anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe
during the 1920s and 30s, and by the time he recorded the 1941 version, the
laughter would have turned to anger, the ‘life is so good’ aspect taken on a
sarcastic slant. Now, with the horrors
receding beyond memory into history, we can again laugh at those crazy times in
old Roumania, where fun was the order of the day; as long as we do not forget
the reality.
But why Romania, when Lebedeff
was not from those parts? Perhaps,
though unlikely, it was on his mind when he wrote it in the mid-1920s because
of the formation of Greater Romania in the period after the First World War;
perhaps it was simply because the four syllables of ‘Roumania’ suited the
rhythm of the song; perhaps it expressed a patronising attitude by urban Jews
to their country cousins, or to Romanian Jews in particular who were seen as
unsophisticated; perhaps there was a genuinely affectionate feeling that
Romanian Jews had fun. What seems
uncomplicated lightheartedness shows on closer inspection that it is not quite
as straightforward as one might assume.
No matter, it is a classic.
There are many, many versions of Roumania Roumania on YouTube, some of
which are too reverent to do the song justice.
The following list is far from exhaustive.
Those by Lebedeff, remain the
gold standard by which the others must be measured:
The Barry Sisters are sedate:
Joel Grey has a nicely bouncy
take with a punchy delivery:
The Jewish Monkeys exaggerate the
manic aspect, not entirely successfully:
Cathy Berberian tries too hard
to be kooky:
Eartha Kitt is typically sultry:
Gordon Jenkins and his Orchestra
did an instrumental version in 1961, which rather defeats the point:
The Sirba Octet also perform an
instrumental version, but it is brisk and energetic:
The Klezmer Conservatory Band
captures the humour well and Judy Bressler’s singing is so pitch-perfect this
is probably my favourite, apart from Lebedeff’s:
