If there's one Chanukah song everyone has heard...

...It's "I Have a Little Dreidel." Never mind that it's literally a song about a game played by spinning a tiny little top, which is no more exciting than it sounds. It's THE Chanukah song, and it Must. Be. Sung. So here are the Maccabeats, looking for a way to sing it:

Video posted by the Maccabeats


(I am okay with a Bohemian Dreidel Rhapsody. That is not a bad option.)

***


As ubiquitous as the song is, you'd think that it had always been around. Okay, not as "always" as yesterday's 13th Century lyrics set to a 15th Century folk song--it IS in English, for one thing--but still, always. Well, it hasn't been, not unless your definition of "always" is 1927, which is only (almost) Irving Berlin "Always" (1925). We also know who wrote it--one Samuel E. Goldfarb. And as an interesting sidenote, his brother, Israel Goldfarb, composed the equally ubiquitous melody to "Shalom Aleichem" in 1918.

Some been-around-forevers are less forever than you'd think.

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