Bananas, of all things!

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bananas, of all things! is the German title of the US Foxtrot hit Yes! We Have No Bananas , which the two songwriters Frank Silver and Irving Cohn published in 1922 with the music publisher Shapiro, Bernstein & Co. (Skidmore Music Inc.) New York.

Translation into German

The Austrian librettist and hit poet Fritz Löhner wrote a German text under his stage name Beda in 1923, under which the piece has probably become better known than the English original. His refrain is:

“Bananas, of
all things, she demands bananas from me!
Not peas, not beans,
not even melons,
that is a 'chicanery' from her!
I have lettuce, plums and asparagus,
also Olomouc quargel ,
but of all things bananas,
she demands bananas from me! "

background

Did the English original text derive its joke from the fact that it was put in the mouth of a Greek immigrant who, due to insufficient knowledge of English idioms, despite negative statements, his sentence with a happy "Yes!" begins, Löhner-Beda moves the plot to Europe and gives it a completely different twist. The statement is not dictated by lack of food, but by the mood of a woman: She wants “bananas, of all things” from the selection of dishes her admirer lists. He cannot even win it with a specialty from Beda's Czech homeland, sour milk cheese known as Olomouc quargel . "This is a 'harassment' from her!"

The German edition of the Foxtrot appeared with Löhner-Beda's text as “Bananen-Shimmy” by the Viennese Bohème-Verlag Berlin-Vienna (Pub. No .: WBV 543); it was also included under license in volume 6 of the collection Zu Tee und Tanz , which the Drei Masken Verlag (Munich / Berlin) and the Verlag Anton J. Benjamin (Leipzig) jointly organized (DMV 3270/24, p. 62 ).

Establishment as a phrase

The refrain line has now entered everyday vocabulary as a phrase of almost proverbial quality: Volume 12 of the Duden, which lists “Quotes and sayings: origin and current use”, lists it on p. 67 as an “exclamation of resentment, of disappointment about an undesirable event ".

Commercial success in Germany

Löhner-Beda's text also proved to be a hit from a financial point of view: “A commercial highlight was undoubtedly“ Bananas, of all things ”, a hit that had already caused a sensation in the USA and, thanks to Löhner-Beda's free, slippery adaptation, grossed millions. "

In 1924, Löhner-Beda was shocked by the success of his hit text in the Wiener Sonn- und Mondagszeitung , in which he published a satirical poem on current events every week from 1914 to 1928, one on the effect of Ironically Bananas! one in which it says: “What did I instigate / I stand in front of the gorge with a shudder / Oh I poisoned myself / By the fruit of my own spirit! / Did I know, could I suspect / That the world is hopping astray / Bananas of all things / This harmless, stupid fruit? "

The popularity of the melody in Germany was so great that it was also picked up by folk musicians. They often “modernized” traditional pieces by adapting a contemporary hit melody as a trio part. In the farmer's bands, of all things, bananas became! then the "Banana-Schimmy" Rhinelander [!]

In 1923 almost all well-known dance bands in Germany recorded the piece on gramophone records; Vocal lectures have been received from tenor Walter Herrling and the Berlin diseuse Claire Waldoff , who recorded it with Deutsche Grammophon in May 1924 . It also came on the market as a piano roll for mechanical musical instruments (electric pianos and orchestrions).

In the 1961 film One, Two, Three by Billy Wilder , shot in Berlin , the German composer Friedrich Hollaender sings this song in a sequence .

Since the 1980s, the song has also been the basis of the melody for the powerfully broadcast commercial song of Maggi's five-minute terrine.

The second episode of the animated series "Otto's Ottifanten" deals with this title twice: Firstly, this episode is called "Ironically Bananas" and secondly, the friends of the grandfather of the Bommel family sing the refrain of this song, but with apples instead of peas.

Audio documents

1. Odeon A 44 268 (Matr. XBe 3857) Chapel Sándor Józsi [d. i. Dajos Béla ], around September 1923

2. Odeon AA 79 603 (Matr.xxBo 7918) artist chapel Dajos Béla Geigen-Primás, recorded on September 7, 1923

3. Beka B.3294 (Matr. 32 186) Bohème-Orchester (conducted by Johannes Lasowski, recorded on September 5, 1923), also B.3290

4. Nordisk Polyphon S 40 310 / 2-27 859 (Matr. 891 ax) Polyphon Orkester med sang, 1923

5. Polyphon 31 173 / 2-27 839 (Matr. 849 ax) Dance Orchestra “Goldfein” [d. i. Paul Godwin under his maiden name], recorded in Sept / Oct. 1923 (also record "Grammophon" 14 717 / B 40 504)

6. Record "Grammophon" 19 134 / B 60 276 (Matr. 244 az) Dance Orchestra Chess Master

7. Record "Grammophon" 14 840 (Matr. 1314 ax) Claire Waldoff, recorded in May 1924

8. Parlophone P.1568-I (Matr. Z 6553) Marek Weber , recorded on November 9, 1923 (with xylophone solo)

9. Vox 01524 (Matr. 1564 A) Bernard Etté , recorded in early 1924

10. Vox 1461 (Matr. 1941 B) Bernard Etté [25cm version]

11. Homocord B. 8267 (Matr. M 51 217) [K2C] Artists' Chapel Jenö Fesca

12. Homocord No. 347 (Matr. M 17 175) artist band Arpád Városz

13. Homocord B.385 (Matr. 17 265-1) [A9B] Walter Herrling, tenor, with orchestra

14. Kalliope K 403 (Matr. 3299) Orchestra with refrain singing

15. Star Record no. 2009 (Matr. 6069) "Star" string orchestra with refrained singing

Piano rolls

1. QRS roll # 2272 played by Pete Wendling in 1923

2. Vocalstyle Song Roll # 12 493 played by Hilda Myers

3. Animatic “Dance Roll” # 59218 from Ludwig Hupfeld AG Leipzig

4. Organ role for Ruth 35er concert organ

Live on

After 1945, of all things, bananas became! primarily cited in connection with nostalgic, romanticizing "Golden Twenties" events. So it sang hit clown Chris "Mr. Pumpernickel “ Howland on an LP entitled The Great Twenties with a“ Bonnie and Clyde ”sound to accompany a Dixieland band. The Béla Sanders orchestra recorded it on the LP Charleston & Quickstep for Philips. The Berlin folk actor Willi Rose recorded the title with the accompaniment of the Wilfried Krüger orchestra in 1977.

Michael Skasa released a CD on which well-known actors perform hit lyrics without music under the title The men are all criminals in 2001. It is distributed under the label “Hörkunst”. This includes, of all things, bananas! :

“'Nothing at all suits her / Because she doesn't want anything banal today / Just bananas' / What do you say: Bananas, of all things, / She demands bananas from me' (Fritz Löhner: 'Of all things bananas'). Sometimes this has something ringy and morning star-like about it. [...] Usually, the more artistic the musical, the more stupid the text. "

The song is quoted several times in modern narrative literature. For example, in the pop novel by the author citizen_b Keiner kisses wie daddy cool (2010, p. 54), in Hannah McKinnon's novel Franny Parker (2012, unpag.), In Sibyl Volks's novel Torstrasse 1 (2014, unpag.) , in Anngrit Arens' novel Süsse Zitronen (2015, unpag.), in Heidi Rehn's novel Tanz des Vergessens (2015, p. 29) and in Walter Kempowski's novel Herzlich Willkommen (2016, unpag.), the conclusion of his so-called “German Chronicle ". But the former Mosse journalist Georg Wronkow also mentions it in his autobiography Little Man in Big Times (2008, p. 113).

literature

  • Nico Albrecht: Tropical fruit as a surrogate. To Going Bananas Fritz laborers-Beda. At worldpress.com , May 27, 2013
  • Annegrit Arens: Sweet Lemons. Novel. Publisher dotbooks, 2015, ISBN 978-3-95824-413-9 .
  • Robert L. Baber: The Language of Mathematics. Utilizing Math in Practice. John Wiley & Sons Publisher, Hoboken NJ 2011, ISBN 978-1-118-06176-3 .
  • Eric Byron: English Acquisition by Immigrants (1880-1940): The Confrontation as Reflected in Early Sound Recordings. In: The Columbia Journal Of American Studies. 2009. ( columbia.edu )
  • citizen_b: Nobody kisses cool like daddy. Himmelstürmer Verlag, 2010, ISBN 978-3-942441-97-1 .
  • Bill DeMain: Music History # 3: “Yes! We have no bananas . ( mentalfloss.com ) July 21, 2012
  • Barbara Denscher, Helmut Peschina : No land of smiles. Fritz Löhner-Beda 1883–1942. Residenz-Verlag, Salzburg / Vienna / Frankfurt am Main 2002, ISBN 3-7017-1302-2 .
  • Stefan Frey: Franz Lehár or the bad conscience of light music. Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 1995, ISBN 3-11-093514-7 , p. 140.
  • Armin Griebel: “Like the old?” Folk music dealing with the new. ( volksmusik-forschung.de )
  • Anette Huber-Kemmesies: Buchenwaldlied. In: weimar-lese.de o. J.
  • Rena Jacob: Fritz Löhner-Beda. My heart is all yours. At: wider-des-vergessens.org
  • Wolfgang Jansen: Splendid revues of the twenties. (= Sites of the History of Berlin. Volume 25). Edition Hentrich, 1987, ISBN 3-926175-34-6 , p. 182.
  • Ann Marie Johnson: Yes! We have no bananas! At: Morrison County Historical Society
  • Walter Kempowski: Welcome. Novel. Albrecht Knaus Verlag, 2016.
  • Hannah McKinnon: Franny Parker. Translated by Eva Riekert. Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2012, ISBN 978-3-423-41218-6 .
  • Michael Pilz: Is it poetry? Is it trash? Otto Sander, Rolf Boysen, Axel Milberg and Co. read 1a Schlager. Audio book. In: Die Welt digital , December 1, 2001.
  • Heidi Rehn: dance of forgetting. Novel. Knaur eBook, 2015, ISBN 978-3-426-42522-0 .
  • Stephan Rixner: From Hiatamadl to Banana Shimmy. The development of dance music in the Eichstätt district since the turn of the century. In: ES No. 128 Saturday / Sunday 4th / 5th June 2011, p. 24. (PDF)
  • Werner Scholze-Stubenrecht, Anja Steinhauer: Quotes and sayings: Origin and current use (= Duden - German language. Volume 12). Bibliographisches Institut, 2011, ISBN 978-3-411-90512-6 , p. 67: “Exclamation of resentment, of disappointment about an undesirable event”
  • Sabine Schutte (Ed.): But I just want to sing about life - about popular music from the end of the 19th century to the end of the Weimar Republic (= History of Music in Germany. Volume 1; rororo. Volume 7793). Rowohlt Verlag, 1987, ISBN 3-499-17793-5 , p. 325.
  • Günther Schwarberg: Yours is my whole heart. The story of Fritz Löhner-Beda, who wrote the most beautiful songs in the world and why Hitler had him murdered . Verlag Steidl, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-88243-715-4 .
  • Monika Sperr (Hrsg.): The big hit book. German hits 1800 – today . Verlag Rogner & Bernhard, 1978, pp. 94, 116, 350.
  • Peter Stuiber: Review of: Barbara Denscher, Helmut Peschina: No land of smiles. Fritz Löhner-Beda 1883–1942 . Salzburg / Vienna / Frankfurt am Main 2002. (Original article, December 9, 2002 at literaturhaus.at )
  • Sybil Volks: Torstrasse 1 . Roman (= German volume 41595). Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 2014, ISBN 978-3-423-41595-8 .
  • Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz (Ed.): How to meet in the Ampezzo Valley. Texts by Fritz Löhner-Beda. Molden Verlag, Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-85485-135-9 .
  • Kerstin Wilke: The German banana. Economic and cultural history of the banana in the German Empire 1900–1933. Dissertation . Hanover 2004. PDF online
  • George Wronkow: Little man in great times: Reports of a life (= Dortmund contributions to newspaper research. Volume 63). Verlag Walter de Gruyter, 2008, ISBN 978-3-11-097199-6 .
  • Claudia Maurer-Zenck (Ed.): Ernst Křenek - Correspondence with the Universal Edition (1921–1941). Böhlau Verlag, Cologne / Weimar 2010, ISBN 978-3-412-20570-6 , p. 97 note 4 (regarding the ban on the performance of the “banana” foxtrot, even without a text, by a Hungarian moral commission in 1924)
  • Christian Zwarg (Ed.): Discography PARLOPHON Matrix Numbers - 30173 to 34999: German. (PDF)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sheet music title , illustrated by Sol Wohlman (1907–1989), pictured at nypl.org .
  2. ↑ The complete English and German text is reproduced at ingeb.org
  3. ↑ “The lyrics to the song suggest that the fruit seller was an uneducated foreigner (But you should hear him speak…, He just“ yes-ses ”you to death…). While most Greek immigrants had little formal schooling, they placed a high value on education. " writes Ann Marie Johnson in 2003 to the Morrison County Historical Society
  4. ↑ cf. Baber: Language of Mathematics, 2011: “An old joke - and a line in a song - is derived from this difference between languages: to the question 'Do You Have Any Bananas Today?' the immigrant grocer replies: 'Yes! We Have No Bananas Today! '”And Byron in CJAS 2009.
  5. ↑ title shown. at imagesmusicales.be
  6. ↑ Camillo Morena (Ed.): To tea and dance. Volume 6: 25 modern dances. Drei Masken Verlag, Berlin / Munich / Vienna 1923. ( Title sheet , illustrated by Wolfgang Ortmann (1885–1967), illustrated by albis-international.de (JPG))
  7. ↑ The phallic symbolic content of the banana led z. For example, in Hungary in 1924 a morality commission banned the performance of the hit even without a text; see. Letter from Ernst Křenek to Maurer-Zenck, p. 97 Note 4. Wilke (Diss. 2004, p . 4) relies on the banana as the erotic “costume” of the dancer Josephine Baker , for which she was banned from performing in Vienna, Prague, Budapest and Munich. 41): "The banana belt first used in Paris by Josephine Baker in her show in 1926 also caused a sensation."
  8. ↑ cf. Peter Stuiber, original article December 9, 2002 at Literaturhaus.at
  9. ↑ People in the USA seem to have been shocked by the success of the ubiquitous hit song, because in the same year 1923 Robert King and James F. Hanley wrote a follow-up song entitled I've got the Yes! we have no banana blues , in which the displeasure with the ad nauseam heard song is expressed; see. I've got the Yes! we have no banana blues (Robert King, James F. Hanley) The Virginians. Leader: Ross Gorman. Belle Baker, voc. Victor 19 135 (Matr. B-28 511-1) Recording Date: 1923-08-27, Place of Recording: New York, New York. Listen to it at loc.gov ; Title shown. at imagesmusicales.be
  10. ↑ cf. Walter Erpf on youtube.com and Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz 2005.
  11. ↑ Adapted e.g. B. by the Eichstätter shoemaker and musician Josef Regulator, cf. Stephan Rixner in ES No. 128, 2011 and sheet music example, ill. at donaukurier.de , and Armin Griebel at volksmusik-forschung.de : “We don't know what the motivation was to freshen up this Rhinelander with a shimmy or foxtrot. Maybe you wanted to address different audiences. "
  12. ↑ Robert Kouril: Bananas, of all things - Film "One two three". May 24, 2014. Retrieved May 17, 2017 .
  13. ↑ listen on YouTube
  14. ↑ cf. Zwarg, PARLOPHON Matrix Numbers - 30173 to 34999: German, p. 260.
  15. ↑ listen on YouTube
  16. ↑ listen on YouTube
  17. ↑ listen on YouTube
  18. ↑ listen on YouTube
  19. ↑ listen on YouTube
  20. ↑ listen on YouTube
  21. ↑ listen on YouTube
  22. ↑ On this organ building company cf. Waldkircher organ builder Jäger & Brommer
  23. ↑ listen on YouTube
  24. ↑ listen on YouTube
  25. ↑ listen on YouTube
  26. ↑ cf. hitparade.ch , to be heard on YouTube
  27. ↑ cf. Michael Pilz's review in Die Welt digital December 1, 2001.