Some oldies have gotten a second wind, and have come back stronger than ever

Some songs that hit the Jewish music market over the decades made such a big impact that you were hearing them being sung at weddings, in schools, Shabbos tables, and in shuls, too. Yet just as fast as they rose, they suddenly disappeared from the Jewish radar and you hardly heard them again. But some of those oldies have gotten a second wind, and have come back stronger than ever.

These songs each have their own journey. One such song is “Yifrach,” from Tehillim 72, which we all associate with Chabad Lubavitch. It was first sung in honor of the Rebbe’s 71st birthday on 11 Nissan 1973. A year later, it was recorded by the group Shema Koleinu (featuring Zale Neuman, Motty Kornfeld, Marty Ritholtz, and a few other bochurim who subsequently rose to communal prominence), and became a popular hit. What most people don’t know was that the song was originally an old Vizhnitzer niggun, often sung for Lecha Dodi close to 200 years ago.

But even though it has endured as a popular Chabad tune, before it fell off the map for the general public, Moshe Storch and the Thank You Hashem movement created the song, “It’s Geshmak to be a Yid” with the tune to “Yifrach.” According to Storch, the words were actually written by a high school boy in DRS by the name of Yos Kenenetsky around the beginning of Covid, and Storch decided it would be a great addition to his Happy Clappy album — and once again, the tune is back on the wedding circuit.

When Yigal Calek a”h composed “Mareh Kohein” back in 1971, it was a slow song, featured on one of the early London Pirchei records and sung in shuls as part of Yom Kippur davening. In the late ’80s, Suki and I brought it back on Avraham Fried’s Around the Year Volume 2 album, cranking up the tempo a bit but still not too fast. After it had its second run, it quietly faded away. But then, about 15 years ago, this oldie somehow sprouted wings and became a popular fast-paced dance song, played at weddings until today

One song that’s had quite a journey is the classic “Hashem is Here.” It was originally a Chabad “niggun rikud,” composed over 100 years ago. In 1970, Rabbi Yossi Goldstein put words to it and recorded it on his first Uncle Yossi album. After that, we had the honor of using the song on our own Uncle Moishy Volume 1, released in 1979. But the song didn’t stop there. In the 1980s, when the Lubavitch Tzivos Hashem was formed, this song became the unofficial song of Hashem’s Army, with the words, “Am Yisrael, have no fear, Mashiach will be here this year. We want Mashiach now and we don’t want to wait!” We’re hoping the wait will soon finally be over.

From the 1960s, when Shlomo Carlebach began changing the face of contemporary Jewish music, his niggunim waxed and waned. Take his famed “Mekimi”: it’s one of the only songs comprosed of just three words — mekimi me’afar dal. The song was extremely popular for a decade, yet as it began to slowly drift away, our Suki & Ding-produced Uncle Moishy Volume 3 came out, with the song, “You know and I know that we’ll be back again” — to the tune of “Mekimi.” And then, “Ani Maamin” happened. Who doesn’t know the famous “Ani Maamin” made popular by Rabbi JJ Hecht, ending with, “We want Mashiach, we want Mashiach NOW…”

Another song with a seemingly ageless tune is “Ya’aleh Tachanuneinu,” composed by Chabad chassid Rabbi Aharon Charitonov back in Russia over 100 years ago. The song is from the beginning of the Yom Kippur night piyutim after Shemoneh Esreh, and is sung in shuls all over the world. Reb Aharon, and his father and uncle, Rabbis Avraham and Sholom Charitonov, composed many well-known Chabad niggunim (Rabbi Sholom Charitonov composed another often-sung Chabad niggun for “Yaaleh”). Avraham Fried used the classic niggun for his own lyrics in his early trademark song “Tatenyu,” which is actually the closing of a circle of sorts: Avremel’s mother-in-law, Ettel Krasnjanski, is a granddaughter of Aharon Charitonov (a daughter of his son Mordechai Tzvi Hy”d) — although Avremel wrote “Tatenyu” as a bochur, long before he met his future wife.

Anyone taking bets on what will be the next huge comeback song in Jewish music? “Racheim”?

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1070)