Bai world bistu shane

The melody of the song was written by the American Jewish composer Sholom Secunda to the words of Jacob Jacobs in 1932 for the Yiddish musical “Me Ken Lebn Nor Me Lose Nisht” (“You could live, but they won't give it”; the English name is “I Would if I Could” - "If I could"). The musical was staged at the Brooklyn Rolland Theater. The song was performed by the famous actor and singer Aaron Lebedeff; at the premiere, the audience called him an encore several times, interrupting the performance. However, the musical was not successful and lasted only one season.

In 1933, 10 thousand copies of the song were sold, it was performed for several years in the nightclubs of the Lower East Side .

Subsequently, Secunda made attempts to interest Hollywood with his song, but they were unsuccessful. So, the singer Eddie Cantor dissuaded him, saying that the song sounds “too Jewish” ^[1] .

In 1937 , when the song was performed in Yiddish by two black singers at the Apollo Theater in Harlem , the young musician Sammy Kahn heard it. Seeing how successful the song is, he invited his employer to contact the publishers, the Kammens brothers, to buy the rights to publish the song, and he and Saul Chaplin could create a swing version in English. As a result of the transaction, Secunda sold the publishers rights for only $ 30, which were also divided in half with the author of the text ^[2] .

On November 24, 1937, a song to the new English text by Kahn and Chaplin was recorded at Decca Records by the then little-known trio of Andrews sisters . Only the title and the first line of the chorus, recorded as “Bei Mir Bist Du Schön”, remained from the original text. The song soon became a hit in the United States , and the Andrews sisters became famous. Many Americans, who have never heard Yiddish, changed the name as “Buy Me a Beer, Mr. Shane ”or“ My Mere Bits of Shame ”.

The song has been translated into many languages, including German; in Nazi Germany, it was popular for some time (performed by Swede Sarah Leander ) until its “Jewish” origin was clarified , after which it was banned . The success of the song in the United States aroused interest in other Yiddish songs, but none of them reached such popularity.

It’s estimated that over 28 years of owning the copyright for Bai Bistu Shane’s copyright , Cammen and other owners of the song earned $ 3 million. It was performed by Ella Fitzgerald , Guy Lombardo , Benny Goodman with an orchestra, Lionel Hampton , Judy Garland , Marilyn Monroe , Max Greger , Nina Hagen ^[3] , Quadro Nuevo ^[4] and many others. It is claimed that the author of the text, Sammy Kahn, bought a house for his mother for royalties on the song. According to urban legend , the mother of Sholom Secunda, learning about the success of the song, began to visit the synagogue much more often, and did this for a quarter of a century - she was sure that in this way God punished Sholom for sins, depriving him of his wealth. At the same time, Sholom himself was referring to the success that he bypassed, calmly saying in an interview with the New York Times : "It bothered everyone around me more than myself."

The popularity of the melody very soon reached the USSR . In 1940, under the name “My Beauty”, it was recorded in instrumental form by the Leningrad Jazz Orchestra conducted by Yakov Skomorovsky ^{[5] [6]} . Parody texts appeared on this motive - "The old woman slowly crossed the road" and "My beauty is beautiful, like a pig."

In 1942-1943, the song “ Baron von der Pschik ” was written to the same tune (musical treatment by Orest Kandat , lyrics by Anatoly Fidrovsky), which was also performed by Utesov ^[7] .

On one of the records of the Aprelevka factory “My Beauty” it was written: “Music of I. Jacques” ^[8] .

“At Cape Town Port”

Another "folk" song for the same tune is widely known - "In the Cape Town Port". The first version of this song, entitled “Jeanette”, was written in 1940 by Pavel Gandelman , a 9th grade student at the 242nd Leningrad school; they began to compose together with a classmate, but he quickly cooled to this occupation. Gandelman recalled: “Everywhere there were hits on similar topics:“ Girl from a small tavern ”,“ In a mysterious noisy Saigon ”, they appeared from nowhere, nobody knew their authors, but they all sang. And I wanted to compose something like that, such a crushing and bloody song on a popular motive. "

Since the 1940s, the song has spread throughout the country, becoming urban folklore , overgrown with various options, most often very different from the original version. The most famous modern options are also different from the original.

Viktor Konetsky in the story-essay "Third Extra" describes the story of the authorship of the song.

Psya Korolenko included one verse from different versions of the text in his composition “The Hag of the Century”, the authors of which are named S. Secunda - S. Kahn, S. Chaplin - J. Jacobs - A. Fidrovsky - P. Handelman - A. Severny - P Korolenko. ^[9]

The song “In Cape Town Port” was performed by:

• Eleanor Filin
• A. Makarevich and A. Kozlov
• Lyudmila Petrushevskaya and Dmitry Shagin on the disc " Mitkovskaya peakless cap" (in the version "In one English port ...")
• Stanislav Chekan in the film "Entertainment for the Old Men"
• Larisa Dolina
• Arkady Severny
• Mikhail Boyarsky
• Alexander F. Sklyar and Garik Sukachev
• Gagarin brothers
• Alexander Malinin

• Original lyrics (Yiddish)
• Efim Alexandrov and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra of Cinematography in the program : “ Songs of a Jewish Town” .
• English text
• Russian literary translation on poetry.ru
• Sholom Secunda - The Story of Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen (English)
• History of the song “At Cape Town Port”
• Polina Smotrich. Song of the Century (inaccessible link from 09/05/2013 [2231 days] - history , copy )
• What songs are put on the melody “Ba world bizta shane”
• “In Cape Town Port” on “Over the Barriers” on Radio Liberty , Jan 5, 2016 (audio)

• Do you remember the port of Cape Town? // So kiss me and say you understand, Alika Kalaida, February 28, 2008 booknik.ru (unavailable link from 05-01-2016 [1379 days])