| "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" | |
|---|---|
 Original cover for the sheet music, referencing the Yiddish show it appeared in. New York, 1932. | |
| Song | |
| Language | Yiddish |
| English title | "To Me You're Beautiful" |
| Written | 1932 |
| Composer(s) | Sholom Secunda |
| Lyricist(s) | Jacob Jacobs (Yiddish) Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin (English) |
"Bei Mir Bistu Shein" (Yiddish: בײַ מיר ביסטו שעהן, or Yiddish: בײַ מיר ביסטו שיין, [ˌbaj ˈmir ˌbistu ˈʃejn], "To Me You're Beautiful") is a popular Yiddish song written by lyricist Jacob Jacobs and composer Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish language comedy musical, I Would If I Could (in Yiddish, Men Ken Lebn Nor Men Lost Nisht, "You could live, but they don't let you"), which closed after one season at the Parkway Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City. The score for the song transcribed the Yiddish title as "Bay Mir Bistu Sheyn".[1] The original Yiddish version of the song (in C minor) is a dialogue between two lovers. Five years after its 1932 composition, English lyrics were written for the tune by Sammy Cahn and Saul Chaplin, and the English version of the song became a worldwide hit when recorded by The Andrews Sisters under a Germanized spelling of the title, "Bei mir bist du schön", in November 1937.[2]
Neil W. Levin, a scholar of Jewish music, has contended that "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" is "the world's best-known and longest-reigning Yiddish theater song of all time."[3] Echoing these sentiments, writer Stephen J. Whitfield has further posited that the song's popularity and influence in pre-war America epitomizes how "a minority [immigrant] culture" can transform the popular arts of a large democratic nation.[4]
- ^ Gottlieb 2004, p. 57.
- ^ Nimmo 2007, pp. 73–74; Esterow 1961, p. 22.
- ^ Levin 2010.
- ^ Whitfield 2001, pp. 1–2.