drinking songs as religious music

[Solidarity Foundation <svzandt...>]

In a message dated 98-02-25 14:02:32 EST, you write:

<<  I'll give YOU a reali life anecdote from MY life.  I attended services
 in 770 Eastern Parkway when I was about 13.  I came back singing their Hashem
 Echod (Nyet Nyet Nikavo) melody.  One of my Hebrew teachers, (who was a
native ocarist russia) started laughig at me.  He asked me if I knew that this
was a
 VERY baudy Russian Army melody?  I had no idea.  But I eventually did see it
 sung in a movie about WWI, in a scene where Czarist Russia army troops march
to
 this very same melody.  >>

My Russian friends say it's a Russian Orthodox church hymn melody.  I would
guess (based on Camp Ramah experience) that this pre-dated the bawdy army
version.
___________

That's nothing! Those folks down on Eastern Parkway [the Lubovicher hassidim
-- ed. note] have one song, "Ne zhurite brati" (Don't Scold Me, Brothers)
which is not only an old Russian drinking song, but they sing it in
Russian (which very few of them understand) with the original words.
Apparently it had some kind of mystical interpretation from one of the
rebbes.
Itzik Leyb