My Yiddishe Momme

"My Yiddishe Momme" is a song written by Jack Yellen (words and music) and Lew Pollack (music), first recorded by Willie Howard, and was made famous in Vaudeville by Belle Baker and by Sophie Tucker, and later by the Barry Sisters. Sophie Tucker began singing "My Yiddishe Momme" in 1925, after the death of her own mother. She later dedicated her autobiography Some Of These Days to Yellen, "A grand song writer, and a grander friend". Sophie Tucker made `Mama' a top 5 USA hit in 1928, English on one side and Yiddish on the B-side. Leo Fuld combined both in one track and made it a hit in the rest of the world."

The song, in English and Yiddish, sadder in the original Yiddish than in the English translation, the mother implicitly symbolizes a sense of nostalgia for the "old world", as well as guilt for having left it behind in assimilating into American society.

There are several versions of the song, under different names:

The song was included in the 1965 Horst Jankowski album The Genius of Jankowski!

Neil Sedaka covered the song in English and Yiddish in 1966.

There was a Spanish version made in the early 1970s called "Mi Querida Mama" (My beloved Mama); it was sung by singer Nino Bravo.

Tom Jones performed a live version on his 1967 album Tom Jones Live! at the Talk of the Town. He reprised this as a duet with John Farnham first on the Australian television show Hey Hey It's Saturday in 1990, and then on the 2005 CD/DVD album Together in Concert.

French singer Charles Aznavour recorded a French version on 16 March 2003, on his album Plus bleu.

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