"Farlangen" (Longing) by Metropolitan Klezmer
Eve Sicular
For queer listeners, most love songs become acts of translation. The
matter of my creating a less alienated expression for this Yiddish song
of love and yearning involved simply switching syllables. While Yiddish
as a language of desire might be foreign to most audiences, making the
object of a woman's desire female was part of my embrace of this piece
as a living expression. "Farlangen" (Longing) originally appeared in a
short, intimate scene in the landmark 1937 Polish Yiddish film Der
Dybuk (The Dybbuk). Composed by Henokh Kon, it features the female
lead singing of a girl's deep yearning for someone who has gone away
forever. The singer is at a sewing table with two other young women who
listen knowingly and glance fleetingly at each other near the song's
conclusion; she is also overheard by the young man for whom she pines.
My adaptation was released in 1997 on Metropolitan Klezmer's debut
recording,
Yiddish For Travelers,
and is sung by Deborah
Karpel. Our adaptation is accomplished by using 'di' (female personal
pronoun) instead of 'der' (masculine personal pronoun) in the final
stanza.
For inspiration in transforming a tune into a representation truer to
my own experience, I was certainly influenced by feminist forebears. For
example, I adore Peggy Lee's steamy classic "Fever," but Linda Tillery's
exuberant lesbian cover of this tune holds an extra thrill of
identification, with its hilarious defiance of taboo. This queered
version of the song has its special way with words in verse after sultry
verse, where lyrics are changed to project no innocence, and in cunning
tongue-in-cheek girl-on-girl, woman-to-woman revisions of herstory:
"Pocahontas loved Sacagawea / They had a very mad affair..." In the end
of Tillery's rendition, translation and desire burn together: "Women are
gonna give you fever / Be it Fahrenheit or Centigrade," a boldly coy
reference to different possible strokes for folks, with temperature
scales as another form of relative expression.
In this spirit, I welcomed the chance to bring another dimension into
a plaintive Yiddish song, reflecting my own preferences as well of that
of most of the women musicians in my bands, Metropolitan
Klezmer and Isle of Klezbos.
Our liner notes include translation
and transliteration from Yiddish language and alphabet (though in our
native English the distinction is blurred since literal translation of
this pivotal little term would grammatically be rendered, "The one
who...," rather than "he" or "she"). This particular transformation
seems all the more apt since several years earlier, in the course of
researching my Yiddish Celluloid Closet
project, I had learned
from film historian J. Hoberman of his discovery that the wunderkind
film director of The Dybbuk, Michal Waszynski, was himself quite
flamingly gay ("flamboyant" was the term Hoberman chose to use in his
book, Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds). Perhaps
the mise-en-scene gives even more context for a Sapphic-friendly
version, describing the all-too-universal human condition of bereftitude
after a lover leaves.
There is quite a vibrant, active queer component to the Yiddishist
cultural movement, including many of our fans; yet this particular
little same-gender gesture has remained almost a private matter. Other
bolder demonstrations, such as naming our all-women's sextet "Isle of
Klezbos," or the Klezmatics entitling their first CD Shvaygn iz
Toyt (Silence = Death, a multi-level play on political words), have
gained much broader public recognition. And certain of my discoveries of
queerness embedded in existing Yiddishkayt have gotten around. People
are tremendously interested in Molly Picon's cross-dressing, and one
drag picture I found in curating the YIVO film & photo archives has
become iconic. Lilith Magazine ran some of my film research as a
cover story using this image. I am equally fascinated by one of Molly's
own lyrics found in Picon's papers at the YIVO Institute. Her own
typescript English translation of "Busy, Busy" (a.k.a. Heaven Help The
Woiking Goil [sic]) contains a rhyming verse about going out to a
Greenwich Village bar on a date: "Come let's go down to the village for
a dance no I ain't tired. / Isn't this the queerest place? Let's have a
drink, I feel inspired." Since both my bands play arrangements of some
of Molly's better-known songs in Yiddish swing and tango arrangements, I
have many chances to mention her full artistic and sartorial range.
It's also a joy to share the highly-defined coming out aspect of a
musical number we call the Muzikalisher Tango
from the 1940 Yiddish film
Americaner Shadkhn
(American Matchmaker). And after creating a Balkan brass-styled version
of Fagin's "Pick a Pocket or Two" from
Oliver!, imagine my delight at revelations of Lionel Bart's
double not-so-secret identities
(Jewish, born Lionel
Begleiter; and gay, pivotally influential in London's Swinging Sixties).
These higher-energy tunes with all their revealed subtexts have made
arcane splashes through our shows, concert programs and CD booklets.
While I can't say how widely listeners understand the new meaning being
created in adapting the brief, grieving chamber intensity of
"Farlangen," that one altered sound satisfies my ear, heart and
soul.
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