The Yiddish folksong "Papir is dokh vays"

[itzik gottesman <gottesman...>]

Any connection between an anglo folksong and the Yiddish folksong 
"Papir iz dokh vays" would be interesting; but , if such a 
connnection could be shown, it would have to date from the 19th 
century or earlier and through a German version of the song , not 
directly from an English language version.

As you know there is no way to date folksongs, but judging from the 
variants and geographic distribution of a song (in the premedia age) 
one can safely say it is new, old, or very old.
"Paper iz dokh vays " is a strange song in this regard. It was sung 
throughout Eastern Europe by 1900 with many versions, though they're 
very similar in melody and text which would imply it's not that old. 
There is  Bronye Sakina's longer version from the Ukraine which has 
not been recorded but is performed nowadays by Michael Alpert and 
Carol Freeman. The Cahan version you mention is from Poland, and 
there are others. Ruth Rubin doesn't state where her version is from 
in "A Treasury of Jewish Folksong". If she knew it from home,  I 
believe she was from a Bessarabian family in Montreal.

In "Mir trogn a gezang", Chana Mlotek mentions that "a few stanzas 
were folklorized from a song by the Yiddish badkhn Eliakum Zunzer 
(1863-1913)  from his play Mekhiras Yoysef play" (1885). This song 
"Zlikhes lid" (zleykhe?), is remarkably similar to Papir iz dokh vays 
and has to be considered the earliest printed version. However, I 
would hesitate to agree with Chana Mlotek that the folksong stems 
from Zunzer's song and not visa-versa, that the folksong preceded 
Zunzer's version. Zunzer's work was popular in the "north" (he was a 
litvak) but less so in the south (Galicia, Bukovina, Ukraine) where 
most of the versions of Papir were recorded.  Also, while his songs 
were popular, his Mekhires Yoysef play was little known. It's 
possible but it doesn't quite add up.

- itzik gottesman

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+