Words and music by David Meyerowitz (1867-1943).
S. Kaczerginski notes in Khurbn vilne that this was one of the songs the Jews of Vilna sang before meals at the order of the Nazis. Herman Yablokoff also writes of similar Nazi coercion in Grodno, his hometown, where he returned in 1960 and documented a survivor’s memories. She told him that on December 19, 1942, the “German murderers with blackjacks, knouts with pronged rods, butts of rifles, drove the Jews — children, old people, women with infants in their arms — through Zamkove Street. The ragged, naked skeletons, swollen from hunger, were forced under ‘threat of death’ to sing loudly “Yidl mitn fidl” (Yidl with the fiddle). . . ‘Vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor’. . . it was a singing to the heavens that froze the blood in one’s veins.”
To you, people, I must give my lament.
Worry makes my hair gray.
I’ve heard from many people that God grants everyone seven good years.
So, I keep waiting and hoping.
I wait, I struggle, I suffer.
And a good year has still not come to me.
Is it possible that my God has fooled me?
Refrain:
Where are my seven good years?
If not seven, let there be a couple.
Something at least for this life.
Is my soul made of flax?
Where are my seven good years?
The taste of poverty should not be tasted by anyone.
The brain dries out from thinking.
A poor man is compared to a corpse.
The Torah says that and I say it too.
At one time, you could forget your troubles.
You could get drunk and think everything is alright with beer, whiskey, bitter and sweet wine.
But even this my pocket doesn’t permit now.
Far aykh, mentshn, muz ikh mikh baklogn
Fun daygn vert mir azh groy di hor,
Gehert hob ikh fun file mentshn zogn
Az got git yedn zibn gute yor.
Azoy halt ikh in eyn vartn un eyn hofn,
Ikh vart, ikh ver tsepiket, ikh krapir,
Un der guter yor hot mir nokh nit getrofn,
Iz es meglekh az mayn got zol blofn mir?
Refrain:
Vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor?
Oyb nit zibn, zol khotsh zayn a por.
Epes fun dem lebn khotshe,
Iz mayn neshome den fun a klotshe,
Vu zaynen mayne zibn gute yor?
Dem tam fun kaptsn zol keyner farzukhn,
Es triknt di gehirn oys fun moykh,
A kaptsn tsu a toytn iz geglikhn,
Dos zogt di toyre un ikh zog dos oykh.
A mol flegt men di tsores khotsh fargisn,
M’hot zikh ongeshikert un gemeynt s’iz gut,
Bir, shnaps, vayn fun zoyer un fun zisn,
Un afile dos derloybt mayn ‘paket’ nit.
פֿאַר אײַך, מענטשן, מוז איך מיך באַקלאָגן,
פֿון דאגהן װערט מיר אַזש גרױ די האָר,
געהערט האָב איך פֿון פֿילע מענטשן זאָגן
אַז גאָט גיט יעדן זיבן גוטע יאָר.
אַזױ האַלט איך אין אײן װאַרטן און אײן האָפֿן,
איך װאַרט, איך װער צעפּיקעט, איך קראַפּיר,
און דער גוטער יאָר האָט מיר נאָך ניט געטראָפֿן,
איז עס מעגלעך אַז מײַן גאָט זאָל בלאָפֿן מיר?
רעפֿרײן:
װוּ זײַנען מײַנע זיבן גוטע יאָר!
אױב ניט זיבן, זאָל כאָטש זײַן אַ פּאָר.
עפּעס פֿון דעם לעבן כאָטשע,
איז מײַן נשמה דען פֿון קלאָטשע,
װוּ זײַנען מײַנע זיבן גוטע יאָר?
דעם טעם פֿון קבצן זאָל קײנער פֿאַרזוכן,
עס טריקנט די געהירן אױס פֿון מוח,
אַ קבצן צו אַ טױטן איז געגליכן,
דאָס זאָגט די תּורה און איך זאָג דאָס אױך.
אַ מאָל פֿלעגט מען די צרות כאָטש פֿאַרגיסן,
מ’האָט זיך אָנגעשיכּורט און געמײנט ס’איז גוט,
ביר, שנאַפּס, װײַן פֿון זױער און פֿון זיסן,
און אַפֿילו דאָס דערלױבט מײַן פּאַקעט ניט.
Song Title: Vu Zaynen Mayne Zibn Gute Yor?
First published in 1988 as Pearls of Yiddish Song: Favorite Folk, Art and Theatre Songs, this anthology contains 115 songs. Some material had never been published, while others, included in rare song collections or sheet music, were largely inaccessible. The songs presented reflect Jewish life in Eastern Europe and the United States and depict childhood, love, family celebrations, poverty, work and struggle. There are also songs from the Hasidic and Maskilic movements, songs of Zion and of America, as well as songs from the Yiddish theater.
The title of this anthology derives from the weekly two-page feature column “Pearls of Yiddish Poetry,” which the compilers Yosl and Chana Mlotek initiated in 1970 in the Yiddish newspaper Der Forvertz (the Yiddish Daily Forward). Hundreds of readers from around the world — including authors, composers, singers, actors — became co-participants in this collective folk project and recalled melodies, lines, fragments, stanzas and their variants of songs, poems, and plays which they had heard in their youth. At first, readers sent in only written material. Later, they also taped songs on cassettes, many of whose melodies had, until then, never been recorded. They also identified and supplied missing information regarding lyricists, poets, and composers and described the circumstances surrounding the songs’ origins, their dissemination, diffusion and impact.
