Frum Music
I’m reposting some of my work that was previously posted in other forums in order to gather it all in one place. This essay was originally posted under the title “Jewish Music” on my “The Second Son” blogspot blog, Wednesday, July 28, 2010.
I’ve periodically updated the post. Over a decade later, this is still the most popular thing I’ve ever written.
Recently a friend of mine was telling me about a new (for him, anyway) song from Ohad. In his words, the tune is, “Mamish beautiful. It’s so moving…” He played the song for me, and after a few bars I started singing along – with the original words. The song he thought was such a beautiful niggun was this:
“Boi Kala” by Ohad Moskowitz
If you don’t recognize it, this is the original:
”Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen
My friend is right that it’s a beautiful tune, but it’s not exactly the holy yiddeshe niggun he thought it was. [Leonard Cohen grew up frum and remained connected to Judaism, but a song about love and sex by someone who went OTD is not something that the frum world would call “Jewish music.”]
As a kid, I never listened to “goyishe” music. Both of my parents listened to all kinds of music as kids, and my mother has a collection of records from the ‘60s and ‘70s of groups like the Bee Gees and the Mammas and Pappas. For some reason, though, once they were married they never played anything except “Jewish” music. (That is, music produced by Orthodox groups.) As a teenager, I was told by my rabbeim that goyishe music consisted of lyrics about sex and tunes that aroused unholy feelings in one’s body. Not having any firsthand knowledge of non-Jewish music, I believed them.
[Not only did my rabbeim in high school (way back when) object to non-frum music, they objected to frum music that they thought sounded too much like pop. There was a line that circulated about a rebbe who had said, “Call me an antisemite. I don’t like “Yidden” and I don’t want “Moshiach.”]
In my early twenties I started listening to music online, and I discovered that what my rabbeim had told me just wasn’t true. Most songs aren’t about sex, and many of the tunes were beautiful, moving, stirring, joyful. It wasn’t all sex and jerky dance tunes.
Then I discovered that many songs passed off as frum music are covers of pop songs. In itself, there’s nothing wrong with covering or parodying a song. What makes it odd is that many of the people who like the frum versions of these songs would never dream of listening to “goyishe” music. And it’s not just the lyrics. Many of these same people won’t listen to Jewish groups that explicitly create parodies of pop songs, like Shlock Rock and Variations. According to my rabbeim, groups like Shlock Rock were only for kiruv or kids who nebech listened to goyish music. It wasn’t good, but it was marginally better than listening to the songs with their original lyrics. Clearly, they believed there was something unholy about the music itself.
Later yet I discovered that what I had heard from malcontents in yeshiva was true, that many traditional songs were adaptations of folk songs and that there really is no such thing as “Jewish” music as wholly distinct from “goyishe” music.
All pretense of there being a clear separation between Jewish and non-Jewish music vanished one Rosh Hashanah. I was spending Yom Tov with a Lubavitcher friend, and we davened in his shul. When I heard them sing one of the tefillos to the tune of the Marseilles, I asked him why they were singing the French national anthem. He told me that one of the Rebbes had taken the tune and stripped it of its tumah so it could be used for the elevated purpose of Rosh Hashana davening. My reaction was, “Riiiiight.” It remains one the most ridiculous and unnecessary justifications I’ve ever heard. [Really. “It’s a nice tune” and a shrug would have been a perfectly adequate explanation.]
Just for fun, I’ve put together side-by-side comparisons of some of the songs circulating in the Yeshivish community which are widely accepted as authentically Jewish and their original versions. I know that there’s a lot of original music produced by Orthodox groups, and I’m not trying to suggest that it’s all or even mostly co-opted pop tunes. It’s just that I find these really funny. It’s probably the unexpectedness of hearing a completely different version of a song I grew up with, and knowing that the “different” version is the original.
This is the first of these songs that I ever stumbled across, back in my early days in the Jewish skeptic blogosphere. At one point, there was a video circulating that had intercut the two versions of the song and a third video in which MBD excoriated people who pirated his music. (This was in the days of P2P sharing, when the music industry was fighting pirated mp3s.)
Frum version: “Yidden” by Mordechai Ben David
Original version: “Dschinghis Khan” by Dschinghis Khan
Frum version: “Asher Bara” by Piamenta
Original version: “Down Under” by Men At Work
Frum version: “Kol Hamesameach” by Piamenta
Original version: “Simarik” by Tarkan
And a version in English:
“Kiss Kiss” by Holly Valance
Frum version: “Baruch Hagever” by Amudei Shaish
Borrows from: “I Will Follow Him” by Peggy March
As a bonus, the version of Baruch Hagever I used in my original post has the theme song from the Heathcliff cartoon as an interlude. I guess whoever put that version together was also a kid in the late '80s / early '90s.
Frum version: “Baruch Hagever” by Lev Tahor
Borrows from: “Heathcliff” theme song
Frum version: “Dip the Apple in the Honey” by Uncle Moishy
Original version: “Clementine” American folk song
Frum version: “Mishenichnas Adar”
Original version: “Pick a Bale of Cotton” American folk song
Frum version: “Im Lavan Garti” by Lev Tahor
Original version: “Cinderella” by Lionel Richie
[Within that last couple of years, I came across a piece written by a frum teacher who recounted playing “Deaf Man in the Shteeble” for his class. The teens were moved by the song, and were discussing the gadlus of frum music when one of the kids told him that it was a parody. This led to a discussion about what gives a song spiritual value, or something like that.
I’m not sure if that anecdote shows that these songs are still generally accepted as frum, or that awareness of their origins has spread in the last 15-ish years.]
Frum version: “Deaf Man in the Shteeble” by Country Yossi
Original version: “The Blind Man In The Bleachers” by Kenny Starr
Frum version: “Mama Rochel” by Journeys
Low part borrows from: “I Can Go The Distance” by Disney’s Hercules
High part (slightly sped up borrows from: “Schindler's List theme”
[This is one of the odder ones. It’s a pretty tune, but the original lyrics are about Jesus!]
Frum version: “Umacha” by Yehuda!
Original version: “Snows Of New York” by Chris De Burgh
Frum version: “Rabbi Nachman Meuman”
Original version: “Dragostea Din Tei” by O-Zone
Frum version: “D'ror Yikra”
Original version: “Sloop John B” by The Beach Boys (Bahamian folk song)
Frum version: “Hashem Melech” by Gad Elbaz
Original version: “C'est la vie” by Khaled
Frum version: “Lichtiger Shabbos” by Mordechai Ben David
Original version: “Close Every Door To Me” from Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Frum version: “Shir Hashalom” by Mordechai Ben David
Original version: “My Melody of Love” by Bobby Vinton
Frum version: “Daddy Dear” by Mordechai Ben David
Original version: “Little One” by Cab Calloway
Frum version: “Od Yishoma” by
Borrows from: “Drunken Sailor” Traditional sea shanty
Frum version: “B'tzeis Yisroel” by Tzlil V'zemer Boys Choir
Original version: “Rivers of Babylon” by Boney M.
Frum version: “Let Us Grow” by Tzlil V'zemer Boys Choir
Original version: “It's a Sin” by Pet Shop Boys
Frum version: “Halellu” by Lev Tahor
Original version: “Holiday Road” by Lindsey Buckingham
Anyone who went to frum schools will recognize this from davening.
(The Village Stompers were an American dixieland jazz group during the 1950s and '60s. I’m not sure if they got the tune from Adon Olam or the other way around. Either way, this is different from the way we’re used to hearing it.)
“The Poet & The Prophet” by The Village Stompers
Frum version: “Torah Tziva Lanu Moshe” by Uncle Moishy
This is a folk song called "Let Us Sing Together," as sung here in 1989 on the kids' show "Wee Sing In Sillyville." Uncle Moishy mostly parodies kids’ and folk songs, but this is one of the less-well-known ones, and the frum version is ubiquitous in frum schools.
Original version: “Let Us Sing Together” by Wee Sing (Czech folk song)
This one doesn't try to hide it, but it's interesting to see the difference in the performances.
Frum version: “Hupp Cossak” by Avraham Fried
Original version: “Hopak Cossack” Ukrainian folk song
Frum version: “Ad Dlo Yada”
Original version: “Dama Dupa Iurii” Folk song
Frum version: “Hinay Lo Yanum” by Mordechai Ben David
Original version: “Mammy Blue” by Pop Tops
Frum version: “Hey Dum Diddly Dum” by Uncle Moishy
Original version: “Hey Dum Diddly Dum” The Elephant Show theme song
Frum version: “Ki Eshmera Shabbat”
Original version: “The Anthem of Sevastopol”
This is another one which in the original is about Jesus. As the post that brought it to my attention pointed out, the frum version has "the exact same content and theme, just switching the person getting brutally martyred from Jesus to R Chanina ben Tradyon."
Frum version: “Der Kedushah Lebt” by Mendy Wald
Original version: “Via Dolorosa” by Sandi Patty
Frum version: “Yimloch” by Dedi
Original version: “What a Feeling” Flashdance soundtrack
0:25-0:40 of this song is played at lots of frum weddings as the intro music for the chosson and kallah
“Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty
Someone pointed this one out to me years ago. I recognize the tune as one I know from a frum song, but I can’t quite place it. Anyone recognize it?
Original version: “Rasputin” by Boney M.
If you know of others, put them in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.
In my experience, the top tier of Gedolim never occupied themselves with this topic. Only the level 2 wannabes and some Mesivta Rebbeim.
The idea that the frum world rejects goyishe music as a shita is like saying the frum world rejects long sheitels as a shita. Lots of noise, but no substance.
The goyishe music scene is, of course, unacceptable. Correctly, no Yeshiva can tolerate its talmidim as music devotees, fans, or groupies.
https://youtu.be/nZ8oOHjsSxQ?si=ckAyUz3RTa8G-tsG
Surely has to feature