# Post the original versions

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-the-original-versions/958879>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** music\
**Created:** [February 4, 2022, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-the-original-versions/958879 "2022-02-04T03:55:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 38

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\
**Post date:** [February 6, 2022, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-the-original-versions/958879/38 "2022-02-06T21:13:28Z")

</div>

> [@Treppenwitz](#):
>
> This one is more complex than I realized. Working backwards, the well known version of Rum And Coca Cola is by The Andrews Sisters. Great record, by the way.

This reminded me of the other big Andrews Sisters’ song, “Bei Mir Bistu Shein” (alias Bei Mir Biste Scheen, Bei Mir Bist Du Schön, etc.), which history I just heard about the other day on the radio and which has a similarly fascinating and convoluted history as “Rum And Coca-Cola”. It first started as a song in a Yiddish operetta before becoming the first big hit for the Sisters in the English version.

> **[Bei Mir Bistu Shein](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bei_Mir_Bistu_Shein)**
>
> "Bei Mir Bistu Shein" (Yiddish: בײַ מיר ביסטו שעהן, or Yiddish: בײַ מיר ביסטו שיין, \[ˌbaj ˈmir ˌbistu ˈʃejn\], "To Me You're Beautiful") is a popular Yiddish song written by lyricist Jacob Jacobs and composer Sholom Secunda for a 1932 Yiddish language comedy musical, I Would If I Could (in Yiddish, Men Ken Lebn Nor Men Lost Nisht, "You could live, but they don't let you"), which closed after one season at the Parkway Theatre in Brooklyn, New York City. The score for the song transcribed the Yiddi...

---

_[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/post-the-original-versions/958879)._