This Song is Your Song

Today we had our event celebrating the new Yiddish translation of Woody Guthrie's classic ode to America, This Land is Your Land. I joined Forward Editor-in-Chief Jodi Rudoren and Forverts writer Jordan Kutzik, along with musician-archivist Lorin Sklamberg, translator and Yiddish expert Michael Wex, and the singer of Dos Land iz Dayn Land, Daniel Kahn. We had a really fun conversation about the why and how of translating from English into Yiddish. If you couldn't make it live, you can watch the video now.

The funniest part, for me at least, came when I noted that in the Yiddish translation, Daniel had inserted a reference to the groyse ozeres, the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes are, of course, one of America's natural wonders and a perfect fit for a song like This Land is Your Land. But it also struck me as a very personal reference to Daniel's homeland of Detroit. Though I, a parochial New Yorker, confessed I had never actually seen any of the Great Lakes. At which point, Michael Wex chose to chastise me in front of the crowd, reminding me that I had been to Toronto (in fact, countless times) and had enjoyed walking along one of the Greatest of lakes.  Oops. To make up for my unintentional insult to the great nation to the north of us, I'll encourage everyone to listen to the folksinging group The Travellers doing their Canadian version of This Land is Your Land.

Of course, it's well worth your time to watch Daniel perform the song (again).

And finally, for the last couple months I've been OBSESSED with this extremely funky version of This Land is Your Land by Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. Sharon sings the verse that's often omitted, in which the singer comes across a PRIVATE PROPERTY sign (and walks right past it). If you've never heard this version, PLEASE drop everything and listen right now.