Notes: A collection of traditional Yiddish songs. Mandy Patinkin performed a concert series based on this album, including a month at the Belasco Theatre in 1998.
Tracks: 1. Belz...Remembering A Little Town Called Belz
2. Hey, Tsigelekh...A Shepherd Tells Of His Lost Love
3. Rabbi Elimeylekh...A Rabbi Get Drunk, Makes Music, And Celebrates Life
4. Raisins And Almonds...A Mother Cradles Her Child, Wishing Him Everything
5. Papirosin...A Boy Sells Cigarettes To Survive The War
6. Ten Kopeks...A Guy Want Ten Pennies To Romance His Girl/Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious/...
7. Maria...Mayn Mirl
8. Yome, Yome...A Mother Asks Her Daughter, What Do You Want?
9. Paper Is White...To The Most Wonderful Girl In The World
10. Song Of The Titanic...Doomed Lovers, Refusing To Separate, Ask God Why?
11. Motl The Operator...A Tailor Working In A Sweatshop To Support His Family Is Killed In A Union...
12. Under Your White Stars...A Holocaust Song
13. American Tune...Our Journey To America
14. Take Me Out To The Ball Game/God Bless America
15. Der Alter Tzigayner...The Old Gypsy Fiddler Plays An Unforgettable Tune: White Christmas
16. Oyfn Pripetshik...Children Learn Their ABC's
Posted 2007-08-05 20:52:48: Amazon.com Editoral Review: Mandy Patinkin knew only a few words of Yiddish at the beginning of the '90s, when the late Joe Papp eked a promise from the actor-singer to learn the repertoire. So he did, and this helzapoppin' collection of traditional Yiddish tunes and Yiddish translations of English songs by Jewish composers is the overblown, symphonically orchestrated result. Patinkin plays to the third balcony on "Mamaloshen" ("mother tongue"), squeezing every iota of feeling out of songs you might have heard on Grandma's knee, and turning each guttural consonant into a virtual phlegm fest. Nostalgia can be nice, but things get weird when Patinkin makes with Yiddish versions of such showstoppers as "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious," Paul Simon's "American Tune," "Take Me Out to the Ballgame," and--oy vey ist mir!--even "The Hokey Pokey," their inclusion justified on assimilationist principles. --Richard Gehr
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