Some of the greatest songs of the 20th century are filled with Jewish DNA. Today: the hidden Yiddish accent behind "Embraceable You," the early songs of Bob Dylan, and other classics. We're joined by David Lehman, author of A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs.
Comments [8]
just wondering who is singing on the clip of
"Someone to watch over me".
The interview was very informative. I will have a look at the book.
Your guest did add to one ongoing myth about American immigration, though. People's names were carefully checked against ships' manifests at Ellis Island, no matter where they came from. The civil servants there did not assign them new "American" names. Immigrants may have changed their names later, but they left Ellis Island with the same name they had when they left Palermo or Odessa.
Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola may not have invented the myth of the Ellis Island name change, but they burned it into American mythology with "The Godfather," book and film.
By the time Bobby Zimmerman visited Woody Guthrie in the hospital in New York, his hero had composed Chanukah songs for his children by his second wife.
Of course, Woody's most devoted disciple turned out to be Ramblin' Jack Elliott, né Elliot Charles Adnopoz, son of a Brooklyn doctor.
Our cultural currents move in mysterious ways.
Ridiculous conclusion by David Lehman. His interest may be limited to certain types of music; but his lack of knowledge of Dylan's (and others') massive influence of Jewish and Hebraic musical forms is massive.
Listening to Bob Dylan's intonation on songs such as "One More Cup of Coffee" and a many more, the musical imprint of Hebrew liturgical music is indelible.
More than this; Dylan's writing themes have so often been Biblical is it impossible to divorce the lyrics from their "Jewish" roots.
Interestingly, cantorial music is coming back to the surface these days. There are a couple of cantors especially in the more orthodox circles. check out cantorswrold.com. Jewish musical talent origianates from the time of the second Temple which stood in Jerusalem untill aprox 100 BCE
Although there is no doubt that these songwriters' heritage and histories contribute to their music, I think that it's narrow to harp on any one facet, especially when you start breaking things down into gestures of a few notes.
Your guest is more accurate when he describes this as one component of an amalgam of influences. I think his argument is at its weakest when he for example tries to pick out "Jewishness" in the melody of White Christmas.
There is also the difficulty of separating out cultural factors from religious ones, of course.
After all, turn of the century popular music and African-American music probably has at least as much, if not more, influence on many of these composers' overall styles.
Only Jews long?
Jewish baseball players in alpha:
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/legendary/Jewish_baseball_players.shtml
play ball
shalom
Screwed, Mr. Schaefer? I expect better language from NPR!
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