Если был бы я портным

Esli byl by ya portnym

Если был бы я портным - a Jewish song from the catalog of Walter J. Kin.

If I Were a Tailor, a merry song of trying every trade

This is a playful comic song in the old shtetl spirit, where the singer cheerfully imagines himself in one trade after another and every attempt goes charmingly wrong. If he were a tailor, the whole town would talk of him, yet he sets out to cut a fine caftan and somehow ends up with a foot rag. As a cook his friends would be proud, but he kneads the dough and forgets the flour. As a tenor or a bass he would sing for everyone,

only louder than a nightingale whether they asked or not.

The joke lives in the refrain, a burst of pure playful nonsense, digi digi don, that needs no translation at all. RIGLI's Russian version keeps every wink of the humor and the warm shrug of a man who cannot get anything quite right and enjoys himself anyway.

Why bring it into English

The comedy of a song like this only lands when you understand the verses. Carrying If I Were a Tailor into Russian and English lets a new listener laugh along with the shtetl instead of only tapping the beat, which is the whole point of Jewish Songs for All.

The words, line by line

Russian lyrics by Olga Anikina. The English is a literal, line by line rendering for meaning, prepared for review, not a singing version.

Credits & rights

Free to sing, free to teach

These songs are free for synagogues, JCCs, museums, schools, yeshivas and families. For everyone else, free to start, and a modest fee later, so the songs travel and take root.

Questions, or a use we have not thought of? Write to doublesign28@gmail.com.

More about the wider Jewish Songs. For All project at havanagila.org.