עצה טובה | 'Etsa tova | Good Advice (1912)
Artist: Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938)
Lyrics: Ha-Zamir
Tune: “Known” Melody
This song was written and published by Noah Pines in the second volume of Ha-Zamir (Odessa, 1903: p. 12). The original text contained six verses. Idelsohn included only three of these verses in Sefer Ha-Shirim: 1, 2 and 4.
The text presents a dialogue between a boy and his mother. The child first asks his mother to cut flowers with him in the garden, after which he asks her to go with him to the forest to catch a bird. The mother answers that the flowers have already been cut, and the birds have flown away.
Idelsohn’s omission of the last verse of the song, which introduces its moral (“enough with playing, go, my son, to school and learn Torah. Torah is the best of all things”), probably reflected his desire to produce a secular song.
In the Table of Contents to Sefer Ha-Shirim, the song is designated as a Hasidic melody. This melody, whose source is unidentified, is in a major key.
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Original (PDF) Modernized (PDF)
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