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Ami Fields-Meyer
@fieldsmeyer.com

There is an extremely moving moment in Mandy Patinkin’s Yiddish version of Paul Simon’s ‘American Tune’ in which he says “di Statue of Liberty” and you are reminded of how profound and universal and powerful that phrase was to so many of the huddled masses. I’ve been thinking about it constantly:

Ami Fields-Meyer
@fieldsmeyer.com

There’s also this lyric in the original Simon - “You can’t be forever blessed.” He wrote it amid Watergate and cast that scandal against the grand American ideal of a nation that takes in immigrants. I think the lyric meant: but look, that’s who we are on our best day. We are so lost and broken.

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BERTA
@breitbert.bsky.social

I love this song I didn’t know Mandy did a Yiddish version…! I don’t remember which hymn but I learned fairly recently that the melody is from a hymn. Which I found really interesting because maybe it always sounded like a hymn to me?

BERTA
@breitbert.bsky.social

I hadn’t heard it yet so I appreciate the link for sure. It’s a beautiful melody. I can see why he wanted to write a new song on top of it.