Miserlou
Yiddish words, Levantine melody
Musicologists think that “Miserlou” was born in the first part of the twentieth century as a rebetiko song. Rebetiko is a folk genre that arose in Greek ports on the Aegean Sea in raffish taverns where arak, hashish, and desperate women mixed with underworld characters known as rebetes. Situated in this Levantine nexus, the music naturally picked up Arabic melodic influences as it spread through the former Ottoman Empire.
“Miserlou” was recorded in several languages and it migrated to North America a century ago. Most Americans know it from the recording by Dick Dale, “the king of the surf guitar”. Dick Dale was Lebanese on his father’s side and he grew up listening to “Miserlou” and other music that was standard in Levantine cultural spheres. In his hit recording of “Miserlou”, he pioneered the use of long, cascading runs on the guitar to suggest an ocean wave cresting and then dropping toward its trough. Dale’s “Miserlou” was featured in the soundtrack of the film, Pulp Fiction, a major twentieth-century American movie.
Once musicians everywhere heard the mysterious, edgy melody of “Miserlou” they rushed to perform it, and Jewish musicians were no exception. One of them was Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia. Abulafia was a typical Yiddish-speaking immigrant rabbi in New York and it’s not clear why he used the same name as Abraham Abulafia, who was an eminent Sephardic mystic in the holy city of Safed in the twelfth century, well before “Miserlou” existed.
The eccentric Greenwich Village musicologist Harry Smith made a recording of Rabbi Abulafia singing the tune of “Miserlou” with the words of “Eliyahu haNavi”, the iconic song about Elijah the Prophet that is sung every week at the close of the Sabbath and at Passover seders. He sings a deeply Yiddishized Hebrew that is sometimes called Ivris, meaning the Ashkenazic pronunciation of Hebrew. It’s all but unintelligible to this student of Hebrew and Yiddish. But it is a startling artifact of a truly authentic folk performance of a religious text.
The quintessential Yiddish recording of “Miserlou” comes from the renowned Yiddish theater couple, Myriam Kressin and Seymour Rexite. In addition to being gifted performers who starred in the world of Yiddish theater and music for decades, they were Yiddish content creators, translating and performing songs on their radio program on America’s Yiddish radio station, WEVD. Myriam Kressin translated the words of “Miserlou” into Yiddish from an unknown language—she was fluent in half a dozen. In addition to Rexite’s solemn, passionate vocal delivery, this recording shines because of its instrumentation—the classically Jewish clarinet sound, the urgent call of the trumpet, and the habanera rhythm. It’s the Yiddish “Miserlou” for Yiddish singers who want to sing this haunting, beautiful song. For those who want to give it a try, the lyrics are posted below.
Miserlou by Dick Dale
Miserlou by Nuftali Zvi Margolies Abulafia. (click on text)
Miserlou by Seymour Rexite (click on text)
Miserlou lyrics
Vayt in dem midbar,
Fun heyser zin farbrent,
Hob ikh amol a meydele dort gekent.
Miserlou heyst zi,
Yeder dort veyst zi git,
Kh'vel di printsesn, mer shoyn fargesn nit.
Shtil, ovent kil,
Un ikh fil az ikh vil mayn gefil
Far ir oysgisn, un zi zol visn nor,
Az nor zi lib mikh, }
Mayn lebn gib ikh ir, yo. } 2x
Her, s'iz mir shver,
Mit a trer zog ikh dir un ikh shver.
Midbar printsesn, kh'ken nit fargesn dikh
Kum heyl mayn benkshaft, }
Nor di kenst heyl¹n mikh. } 2x
Miserlou mayne, meyd¹le fun orient,
Di oygn dayne hobn mayn harts farbrent.
Mayn harts wert a kranke,
In khulem zeh ikh dikh,
Tants far mir shlanke,
Drey zikh geshwint n gikh.
Mayn mizrakh blum, Miserlou