Re: Tsena, Tsena

[Jacob and Nancy Bloom <bloom...>]

Here's the information about the Summer 1998 issue of Sing Out:

The article was by Pete Seeger.  He said:

"The song 'Tzena Tzena Tzena Tzena' was written during World War II by
composer Issachar Miron, age 19 at the time and his friend, Yehiel Haggiz,
age 30....the original Hebrew lyrics were 'come out, come out, girls, see
the soldier boys in the village.  Don't be, don't be - don't be shy!  Let's
sing and dance, all of us together.'...A few years ago, composer Miron and I
started talking about new words that would project our quest for peace."

I take it that Seeger is in touch with Miron, and that this information
about the authorship of the song is what he has learned from Miron recently.

He also credits English lyrics made up in 1950 by Gordon Jenkins and Arabic
lyrics by Salman Natour.

The rest of the article concerns how Seeger transformed Tzena Tzena to "a
peace song, not a victory song" by getting Miron to write new lyrics, Miron
gettnig Natour to write the Arabic lyrics and Seeger putting the English,
Hebrew and Arabic versions together into a trilingual performance piece.

Jacob Bloom
bloom (at) gis(dot)net


----- Original Message -----
From: "Sam Weiss" <SamWeiss (at) bellatlantic(dot)net>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 7:00 PM
Subject: Re: Tsena, Tsena


> Seems to have been written as an Israeli hit song around 1950.  Text by
> Yehiel Hagiz, music by Issachar Miron and Julius Grossman.  Later
> attributions list Mitchell Parish instead of Grossman.  More recent
> attributions simply list Issachar Miron.  (shades of Goldfarb/Gelbart...?)
> Summer 1998 of Sing Out (Volume 43 #1) has an article on it, which I have
> not seen.
>
> At 05:30 PM 8/15/03, Eleanor Shapiro wrote:
> >Can anyone provide me with background on the Israeli song Tsena, Tsena
> >BEFORE it became a hit with the Weavers? -- who wrote it, when, where it
> >was sung; how popular was it in Israel; was the history of the lyrics
> >different from that of the melody--if so, background on both would be
> >helpful.
>
>
>
>
> _____________________________________________________________
> Cantor Sam Weiss === Jewish Community Center of Paramus, NJ
>
>
>

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