Wiki
-
Length
3:17
Dos Kelbl
Dana Dana was written for the Aaron Zeitlin stage production Esterke (1940–41) with music composed by Sholom Secunda. The lyrics, score, parts, and associated material are available online in the Yiddish Theater Digital Archives. The lyric sheet is in typewritten Yiddish and handwritten Yiddish lyrics also appear in the piano score. The text underlay in the score and parts is otherwise romanized in a phonetic transcription oriented toward stage German.
The orchestra plays the Dana Dana melody at several points in Esterke. The original is 2/4, in G minor for a duo of a man and a woman, choral with the orchestral accompaniment. Secunda wrote "Dana-" for the orchestral score and "Dana Dana" for the vocal scores. The Yiddish text was written with roman alphabet. He wrote for the choral score "andantino" (somewhat slowly) and "sempre staccato" (play staccato always). The melody of the introduction was also used at the end of the song. He wrote "piu mosso" (more rapidly) for the refrain and some passages that emphasize the winds. First, a woman (Secunda wrote "she") sings four bars and then the man (Secunda wrote "he") sings the next four. They sing together from the refrain. Although singing the third part of "Dana Dana" (="Dana Dana Dana Dana…") the man sometimes sings lower than the melody using disjunct motions. The melody is refrained. Then "he" sings the melody, and "she" sometimes sings "Dana", other times sings "Ah" with a high voice or technical passage. Secunda wrote "molto rit." (suddenly much more slowly) for the ending of the first verse. There are some difference between the original and the melody that are well known. Secunda wrote "ha ha ha" for the choral score with the broken chords.
Secunda translated Dana Dana into English (changing the vocalization of dana to dona), but this version failed to gain popularity. The lyrics were translated again in the mid-1950s by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, and the song became well known with their text. It became especially popular after being recorded by Joan Baez in 1960, Donovan in 1965 and Patty Duke in 1968.
Dana Dana has been translated into and recorded in many other languages including German, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and Vietnamese. It has been sung by performers including Nechama Hendel, André Zweig, Chava Alberstein, Esther Ofarim, Theodore Bikel, Karsten Troyke, Sumi Jo, Claude François, and Hélène Rollès together with Dorothée.
Lyric
Phonetic romanization (Standard Yiddish)
Oyfn firl ligt dos kelbl
ligt gebundn mit a shtrik
hoikh in himl flit dos shvelbl
freyt zikh dreyt zikh hin un krik.
Lakht der vint in korn
lakht un lakht un lakhtt
lakht er op a tog a gantsn
mit a halber nakht.
Dona, dona, dona, dona,
Dona, dona, dona, da,
Dona, dona, dona, dona,
Dona, dona, dona, da.
Shreit dos kelbl zogt der poyer
ver zhe heyst dikh zein a kalb
volst gekent tzu zein a foygl
volst gekent tzu zein a shvalb.
Lakht der vint in korn …
Blinde kelber tut men bindn
un men shlept zey un men shekht
ver s'hot fligl, flit aroyftzu
iz bei keynem nit keyn knekht.
Track descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
