Dana dana dona dona redux

[Ari Davidow <ari...>]

I was just perusing the liner notes to a collection of music by the NAMA 
Orchestra, an international folk group that dabbled in Yiddish folk music, as 
well as klezmer, during the mid-seventies to mid-eighties in LA. (Review, 
http://www.klezmershack.com/bands/nama/bestof/nama.bestof.html ).

Anyway, they claim, as I believe others here claimed, that the original 
nonesense rhyme in the song was "dana dana dana" not "dona dona", that the song 
was from a yiddish theatre production, "Esterke", about Casimir the Great of 
Poland (not about the Holocaust), in 1940. The author of the words was Aaron 
Zeitlin. The NAMA notes claim that Sheldon Secunda is often shown as an author 
due to his father's success with "Bei mir bistu shein"; his father is credited 
on the album with the music, however.

The album is interesting, and may be worth the price just for the liner notes, 
which appear to have been reasonably researched. (In this case, for instance, 
sources cited include the original Esterke book, Zeitlin's original working 
script, via his widow Rachel.)

ari


ari


Ari Davidow
ari (at) ivritype(dot)com
list owner, jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
the klezmer shack: http://www.klezmershack.com/

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