KOILEN
Created on 21/09/2012Latest update on 15/02/2024
Artist: Jewish Orch.
Author: traditional
Label: Columbia
Year: 1919
Means Coals in Yiddish and echoes the melody line of Bella Ciao, the famous anthem of Italian partizans in their fight against fascism during WW II. 1919 of course came almost one WW earlier, when the song was already popular among female workers in the rice fields of Padua. Also, as there were at least as many Italian immigrants to the US as Russian Jews, it may just as well be the other way around: that the Jews were inspired by the Italian melody. Third theory: a Romanian or Ukranian origin for the melody.
Covers:
- 1919:
Abe Schwartz Jewish Orch. [same recording in UK]
- 1919:
Mishka Ziganoff [as Koylen; Mishka was a gypsy accordionist born in Odessa who emigrated to New York where he had a restaurant; recorded in New York and reissued on comp Klezmer Music - Early Yiddish Instrumental Music - The First Recordings 1908-1927]
- 1920:
Gus Goldstein [oldest vocal version; a song about a sack o' coals crediting Abe Schwartz for the lyrics; he was the leader of the Jewish Orchestra]
- 1944:
Brigada Giustizia E Liberta [partizans in the Appenines; while it appears there haven't been made any wartime recordings of Bella Ciao in the partizan version, this core brigade sure spread the word and was probably the first to use a final stanza praising a red flag]
- 1962:
Giovanna Daffini [as Bella Ciao in the rice fields version; field recording by Gianni Bosio and Roberto Leydi; here Bella Ciao (Goodbye Beauty) has to be interpreted as "Goodbye youth, goodbye beauty vanishing in these harsh working conditions"]
- 1964:
Yves Montand [as Bella Ciao in the partizan version]
- 1965:
Milva [idem]
- 1969:
Adolfo Celdron [Spanish version banned under Franco]
- 1976:
Zupfgeigenhansel [idem; in German]
- 1981:
Kollektief Internationale Nieuwe Scène [idem on their album De Herkuls]
- 1995:
Thomas Fersen [idem, French version]
- 1995:
Modena City Ramblers [idem with Goran Bregovic]
- 2002:
Rocco Granata [idem]
- 2005:
Mala Vita [idem]
- 2006:
Chumbawamba [a Bella Ciao with lyrics commemorating the anti-globalist killed during a G8 conference in Genova]
- 2012:
Sing For The Climate [as Do It Now]
- 2017:
Professor & Berlin [in Netflix series La Casa De Papel]
- 2018:
Marc Ribot [as Goodbye Beautiful with Tom Waits]
The Bella Ciao/Koilen melody is also used in an Italian children song (La Ballada Della Bevanda Saporifera) and in a 1934 love song by ex carabinieri Rinaldo Salvadori serenading his girlfriend from Marseille. The partizan version made it all over the world in Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Berberic, Turkish, Kurdish, Hungarian, Romanian, Ukranian, Polish, Bulgarian, Croatian, Greek, Latin, Rheto-Romanian, Gallician, Catalan, Breton, Basque, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Icelandic, Chinese, Korean and Esperanto.
