S/O Jewish Music: Which songs are from non-Jewish sources?

amother

Vanilla

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 7:45 am

amother Strawberry wrote:

Some things are just bad.
Listen to the clip essie helpfully posted for us of Fifth Harmony singing "Give it to me I'm worth it".
Then come back and tell me if you want that playing at your child's wedding.
Think of yourself standing in shul at the end of the fast Yom Kippur saying "Hashem melech..." and explain to me why someone thought it was normal to teach my kids to sing those words to Marc Anthony's music.
This is enhancing our connection? Or destroying any hope of spiritual connection?

Awful words can put to beautiful music. Why not separate the two and use the music as a vehicle for something spiritual?

Copyright infringement is theft, but that's a separate issue.

Trademark

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 8:55 am

amother Mustard wrote:

Hashem Melech is a Spanish song. I know because my Mexican neighbors had it blasting at a party one Shabbos afternoon and I was able to sing along Smile

The original is french.

naturalmom5

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 9:54 am

OP, then I would only listen to Chabad niggunim that have a mesora to the Rebbes

Or chazonish from a few hundred years ago

And if you davern in an Askenazi shul walk out angrily before Yigdal
The popular niggun is a church hymn

Only the Moroccans have a pure Yigdal tune

Most Kah Keli tunes come from tre if sources

Last edited by naturalmom5 on Thu, Nov 03 2022, 11:35 am; edited 1 time in total

KJP

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 10:19 am

naturalmom5 wrote:

OP, then I would only listen to Chabad niggunim that have a mesora to the Rebbes

Quite a number of Chabad niggunim (Napoleans march, shamil etc.) are actually non Jewish songs. However, we believe that a Rebbe is on such a level to be able to elevate such songs, and we have adopted them.

amother

Electricblue

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 10:20 am

Op, please define “Jewish music”

All music is always influenced by its surroundings. Like Klezmer, which is considered a Jewish genre of music has clear roots in Russian and Cossack marches of the time, as well as a big ottoman influence. This is the kind of music known as “chassdish” music.

For as long as we have lived in gulas we have had cultural exchange with the nations around us. You need to decide your own arbitrary guidelines on what you define as “Jewish Music” which is why many frum people will listen to all the songs listed above as long as they are sung by a religious person. And then we can get into a discussion of what level of religious you feel is okay to listen to…..

snailmail

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 11:19 am

amother Crystal wrote:

I think there are a few Jewish singers who don't use non-Jewish music or compose their own music. If anyone know who they are please list them. To my knowledge Abie Rottenberg and Baruch Levine are two of them.

Avraham Fried has said he only sings original songs, not taken from Non-Jewish sources.

All music is influenced by surroundings and the generation, it is (sometimes) difficult to draw the line what has been taken from a non-Jewish song & what is original.
But there have even been copyright infringement lawsuits between non-Jewish singers, who claim their song was copied while other said it is different because of a few notes/bars were not the same.

Choirmistress

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 11:57 am

(I had heard that Ma'oz Tzur's most popular niggun came from a secular source.
But I had no idea that some use "La Marseillaise" for part of benching.)
There's a big difference between using the tune the imprisoned Joseph uses in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" for "Lichtiger Shabbos", or "Yankee Doodle" for the children's song "Just One Shabbos" (which, btw, I have expanded on by two more verses), and using "Sharm el Sheikh" for "Adon Olam", or the Lambada or Macarena as a chassene dance. I would not allow either those or the Bunny Hop or even (as an instrumental during the meal) the Gilligan's Island Theme at a second chassene of mine.
The point: It is quite proper to take non-Jewish sources for Jewish-themed songs, provided that a kosher source is doing the borrowing. It does not even have to be a rebbe handing down a mesorah to his chassidim. It can be any kosher singer (Rottenberg, Fried, Ehrlich, Levine, Shweky, Katz, Lipa, etc.), as long as it is l'shem Shamayim and done tastefully and respectfully.
(Hey.... We ARE miracles!)

Hashem_Yaazor

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 12:16 pm

A relative of mine is to blame for the Gilligan's Island tune becoming popular. He was using it once at an NCSY convention decades ago when he was a leader (for entertainment value to engage the kids) and a very choshuv rav (I know who, not sure if I should publicize) thought it was a beautiful niggun and started using it in his kehilla innocently.

amother

Holly

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 12:25 pm

More than that, I find it appalling to dance to "Hashem Melech", because I think that the words are holy, and the people who were dancing to it at weddings were doing a lot of shaking their chests at each other, which was just so bizarre to me.

SYA

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 12:52 pm

KJP wrote:

It’s only a handful.
Those with words from tehillim or Davening were made up by the Chabad Rebbeim or their chassidim. The exception is for ha’aderes vemunah which is a French tune. But the Rebbe put that tune to those words and we believe elevated it.

amother

Tealblue

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 1:16 pm

Asher Barah Sason Visimcha
To the tune of Down Under by Men at Work.

I remember when I was in a bus and heard that one on a radio l. It was @1990 and I was a younger teen. I was sufficiently confused.

shabbatiscoming

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 1:30 pm

amother Tealblue wrote:

That was the piamenta brothers. The funny thing was that I heard the piamenta version first and when I heard the english version I was very confused Smile

And I grew up with non jewish music, but my mother loved the piamenta brothers so we listened to them often.

amother

Tealblue

Thu, Nov 03 2022, 1:33 pm

naturalmom5 wrote:

Miami BC. Bsiyata D Shomaya

Originally Eye of the Tiger

Are you sure. They are both my era and I can sing both easily (grew up on both Jewish and non-Jewish music) I just tried singing them and they do not seem to be, but I could be wrong.