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How to Be Strong

An original English song by Walter J. Kin about strength learned at home: stand tall, protect others and remain kind. Read the complete words and listen to the official backing track.

At a glance

Original language
English
Lyricist
Walter J. Kin
Composition date
Not established
Recording
Backing track available; archived vocal unavailable

Strength passed from mother to child

The lyric begins with a small conversation: a speaker asks a friend where her strength comes from. Her answer is a song her mother used to sing. Advice becomes a refrain, and the refrain becomes something the next person can pass on. This is the story told by the words; it is not a documented account of the author’s family.

The surviving English text credits Walter J. Kin. The sources available for this article do not establish the date when the words or melody were first written. The date attached to the available backing-track release is a recording date, not evidence of the song’s composition date.

Kindness belongs inside strength

The mother’s advice places respect for family, defence of home and kindness side by side. Strength here does not require giving up gentleness. Repeating the same short advice makes the song easy to remember and gives a group a clear refrain to join.

The final greeting pairs “aloha” with “shalom”. Within this English lyric, those two words connect different cultural settings while keeping a recognisably Jewish greeting. The text is an original song, not a translation of an identified Hebrew or Yiddish folk lyric.

What you can listen to here

The inline player contains How To Be Strong (Jewish, the Musical) (Backing Track), credited to RIGLI and Angel Balan. It is an instrumental accompaniment, not the missing vocal recording. Its official YouTube release description gives 24 April 2019. That date applies to this release listing.

The earlier vocal video preserved in the project’s archive is currently unavailable. This article keeps its original English words so that readers can still understand and sing the song. The backing track and the archived vocal version remain separate recording entries; finding one does not establish the availability of the other.

Words

I asked my buddy how come and where from She’s always been so good and strong She smiled it comes from my dear mom She always sang me this little song
You try to stand up stand straight and tall Respect your folks and defend your home Be kind and strong and that is all And say "aloha" or just "shalom"
I asked my buddy how come and where from She’s always been so good and strong She smiled it comes from my dear mom She always sang me this little song
You try to stand up stand straight and tall Respect your folks and defend your home Be kind and strong and that is all And say "aloha" or just "shalom"
You try to stand up stand straight and tall Respect your folks and defend your home Be kind and strong and that is all And say "aloha" or just "shalom"

Credits & rights

Credits & rights

Performer Riglis Band (female vocals)

Music Walter J. Kin

Style Gentle calypso-folk with Hawaiian warmth, klezmer clarinet and ukulele

Language English

Publisher Rigli Publishing (Walter J. Kin)

Rights owner Rigli Publishing

Licensing Rigli Publishing

Copyright Registered (SR0000891350)

ISRC CAENV1906977

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.

Free use for non-profits

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.