Lisa Fishman performing the tragic Yiddish song, "Papirosn," ("Cigarettes") with Chicago's Maxwell Street Klezmer Band. This performance took place on November 3rd, 2013 at Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music.

The song tells the story of an orphaned child selling cigarettes and matches on the street in order to survive.
The melody was originally based on an old folk song, and the lyrics are by Herman Yablokoff.
This arrangement - by pianist Bob Applebaum - takes the song in the second half into a jazz swing, and our performance imagines the young child now grown up and peddling things other than cigarettes.

Musicians in this video:
Conductor - Alex Koffman
Piano - Bob Applebaum
Bass - Jim Cox
Drums - Steve Hawk
Clarinet - Shelley Yoelin
Clarinet - Donald Jacobs
Trumpet - Ivo Braun
Trombone - Robert Samborski

Video work by Jeremy Mangan.

For more information about Chicago's Maxwell Street Klezmer Band:
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For more information about Lisa Fishman:
www.LisaFishmanJewishMusic.com
www.LisaFishmanMusic.com
www.LisaFishman.com

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From the National Library of Israel:
"The song Papirosn (Cigarettes) was written in the 1920s by Herman Yablokoff, who was active in Yiddish theater in Poland and Lithuania in the years after World War I.
The song was inspired by children trying to earn a living on the streets hawking cigarettes. The sight of these children reminded Yablokoff of his own wartime childhood, during which he had tried his hand at the same enterprise – hawking cigarettes to passers-by.
Yablokoff emigrated to the United States in 1924 and the song was made popular by a Yiddish radio show in 1932. It was later a hit number in a musical, also called Papirosn, which debuted in 1935.
During the Holocaust, in the ghettos of Poland and Lithuania, new lyrics were written that reflected the trials of the time and place."

From HebrewSongs.com
"This song by "Der Poyets" (The Clown), HermanYablokoff, tells the tale of an orphaned cigarette peddler freezing in the rain on a street corner. Papirosn long ago entered the folk tradition, with several variants. One is the doina or lament in Rumanian-Yiddish style; another is a rollicking dance-band version in Klezmer style."

Song Translation:
"CIGARETTES"

A cold night, foggy, and darkness everywhere
A boy stands sadly and looks around.
Only a wall protects him from the rain
He holds a basket in his hand
and his eyes beg everyone silently:

I don't have any strength left
to walk the streets hungry and
ragged, wet from the rain,
I shlep around from dawn.
Nobody gives me any earnings,
everyone laughs and makes fun of me

Buy my cigarettes!
Dry ones, not wet from the rain
Buy real cheap,
Buy and have pity on me.
Save me from hunger now
Buy my matches, wonderful ones, the best,
and with that you will uplift an orphan.
My screaming and my running will be for naught.
Nobody wants to buy from me-
I will have to perish like a dog.

My father lost his hands in the war
My mother couldn't bear her troubles
anymore
And was driven to her grave at a young age
I was left on this earth unhappy and alone like a stone
I gather crumbs to eat in the *c*old market
A hard bench in the cold park is my bed
and on top of that, the police
beat me with the edges of their swords and sticks
my pleas and my cries are of no use.

I had a little sister, a child of nature
Together we shlepped around for an entire year.
When with her, it was much easier for me.
My hunger'd weaken when I glanced at her
Suddenly she became weak and sick
died in my arms on a street bench
And when I lost her I lost everything
Let death come already for me, too.

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