Elaine and Susan Sing Goodnight to Mishegas Transcript
- Trombone's gonna be over on this side.
- Daddy. Daddy. Daddy, Daddy!
- Mishegas, troubles, tsuris, heavy-heartedness, craziness, sadness. Mishegas.
♪ Shalom aleichem ♪
♪ Malachei hashareit ♪
♪ Malachei elyon ♪
♪ Mi ♪
♪ Mimelech mal'chei ham'lachim ♪
♪ Hakadosh baruch hu ♪
♪ Tseit'chem l'shalom ♪
♪ Malachei hashalom ♪
♪ Malachei elyon ♪
♪ Mi ♪
♪ Mimelech ♪
♪ Mal'chei ham'lachim ♪
♪ Hakadosh baruch hu ♪
- Well, unfortunately, it's a diminutive term for craziness, and so, on the one hand, it's all the craziness that's in the world that harries us, and I think, by giving it a very diminutive form, you know, at least, in this American context, it kind of gets diminutive. It's a way of containing the craziness of the world.
- Madness. Chaos. Really, madness, nonsensical. Things being wrong. It's a strong word. And so, it shouldn't be used lightly.
- Mishegas is Elaine and Susan.
- Mishegas is craziness. Mishegas is when the world is turned upside down, and when things aren't going the way we think they should go.
- Sorrow and troubles, that's what mishegas is, and it's so opposite of what my mother and Susan represent.
- It's your idiosyncrasy. It's your schticklach, whatever it is that you do that is unique to you that nobody else does, that you have do, because it's part of who you are. That's your mishegas.
- Mishegas is nuts, just plain nuts. I got enough in my family.
- Here we go. Goodnight, mishegas. Hello. Okay, I love this one. No one more guns and no more zombies. This is a beautiful picture that I don't understand. But it has to do with a master of social work and a job and a world and trauma and hunger. You know who you are. Trauma and hunger. Free world. Yes, okay, one more. Enough for all. People give more and take less from the land of life.
- [Audience] Ooh.
- Mishegas is somebody that's crazy, that's a meshuggener, is a crazy person, a nut.
- Craziness, mumbo-jumbo, disorder, funny, unexpected bunch of crap.
- From the lack of Yiddish in my upbringing, I feel the general understanding of it that I have is just your craziness. It's your, yeah, your own mental craziness, the things in your head and probably the things in the world that are, that poke at you. The craziness.
- Mishegas is chaos, and in our family, it's usually at dinner , or any time we're all together doing anything.
- What I always think of is the movie "The Apartment," when the Jewish landlord is asking him how he, what of all the mishegas in Cape Canaveral with the space program, and so, when I was a kid, I always thought it was like things from space, like all the dust and particles and rolling around you and coming down to Earth somehow.
- A meshuggeneh mensch is a crazy person. Mishegas is nuttiness. No?
- Is meshugge connected at all? Okay, that one I know a lot. That one, it's like a, you're meshugge, you're crazy. And that one I know a lot from hanging out at my friends', going to bar mitzvahs, and definitely from the old people, everyone around the tables, just like every five seconds, especially about the kids.
- Every age and every time has its craziness, and I guess it's a word that all of us live with.
- This tune was written, was kind of passed down by my grandfather. Anyway, I wrote the words to this tune. It was one day, when I was all in lullaby-land. I loved lullabies. I was learning Yiddish lullabies and American lullabies, and I thought, wouldn't it be nice to write a lullaby to your mishegas?
- That's an old, old, old, old Russian folk song. Goodnight, they play, they used to play it, I found out, from when we were doing this revival of the klezmer, when the wedding was over. The band would play that, the people knew to go home. Yes! But it is, goes back, you know. Nobody knows who wrote it. What, who, where? A lot of the music we play like that.
- Ready, let's sing.
♪ Goodnight, goodnight ♪
♪ Goodnight, my mishegas ♪
♪ Shlof mayne tsrus ♪
♪ Shlof meyn bazorgt harts ♪
♪ Shlof, gezunterheyt ♪
♪ Shalom, shtil, gezunterheyt ♪
♪ Shlof mayne tsrus ♪
♪ Shlof meyn bazorgt harts ♪
♪ A new song has begun ♪
♪ L'chaim to my blessings ♪
♪ Yasher koach everyone ♪
♪ Over and again ♪
♪ Once more, each day begins anew ♪
♪ Goodnight, for now, dream sweet ♪
♪ For now ♪
♪ Yai la, yai la ♪
♪ A new song has begun ♪
♪ L'chaim to my blessings ♪
♪ Yasher koach everyone ♪
♪ Over and again ♪
♪ Once more, each day begins anew ♪
♪ Shlof, for now, dream sweet ♪
♪ For now ♪
- That was fabulous.
- There's a capacity to live with mishegas. I mean, I know we're here to say goodbye to it, and may the world be a better place and soon, amen, but in the meanwhile, we have to somehow live with the darkness and the light, the mishegas and that which counters it, and that capacity, I think, to live with all of those contradictions and still come out with a song and a dance is quite wondrous.
- [Susan] Thank you.
- Oh!
- Oh, oh yeah.
