Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars

Irving Berlin

1915

Image

Page with English title on top and decorative border. — Sheet music for “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-Seven Dollars,” a comic song about a Jewish businessman on his deathbed trying to collect money owed him. “Yiddish dialect songs” were popular performance pieces in an era that also embraced Italian dialect songs and blackface. All these genres stereotyped and mocked their subjects. Eventually, even some Jewish stars, such as Irving Berlin, Fannie Brice, and Sophie Tucker, wrote and performed Yiddish dialect songs, whether because of a desire to subvert the genre or simply because they were a popular and profitable repertoire.

Credits

Irving Berlin, “Cohen Owes Me Ninety-seven Dollars” (New York: Ted Snyder Co., 1915). Courtesy The Lester S. Levy Sheet Museum Music Collection, The Sheridan Libraries, Johns Hopkins University.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Irving Berlin was born Israel Isidore Baline in Mogilev province (today in Belarus); his father was a cantor. The family immigrated to New York City in 1893, and in 1901, his father died, leaving Irving (as he would later call himself) to busk on the Lower East Side. He copublished his first song in 1907, and in 1911 came out with his national sensation, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” In 1917, Berlin wrote “God Bless America” for the musical review Yip Yaphank!, but he did not release it until 1938, assigning all of its royalties (and those of his other patriotic songs) to charities. Berlin was a leading advocate for the intellectual property rights of authors, songwriters, and composers. He remains one of the most accomplished of songwriters for Tin Pan Alley, Broadway, and Hollywood. His most famous song, recorded hundreds of times, is one of the most beloved Christmas songs in the American songbook, “White Christmas.”