Album: Cabaret

Meeskite [Jack Gilford]



HERR SCHULTZ:
[spoken]
Now the only word you have to know to understand this
little song is the Yiddish word "meeskite".
Meeskite means: ugly, funny looking...
Meeskite means:

[singing]
Meeskite, meeskite
Once upon a time there was a
Meeskite, meeskite
Looking in the mirror
He would say
What an awful shock,
I've got a face
That could stop a clock.

Meeskite, meeskite
Such a pity on him
He is a
Meeskite, meeskite
God up in his Heaven left him out on a shaky limb
He put a meeskite on him!

[spoken]
Listen, he grew up. Even meeskites grow up.

[singing]
And soon in the Heder (means Hebrew School)
He sat beside this little girl
And when he asked her, her name
She replied: "I'm Pearl!"

He ran to the Zeiddah (that's grandfather)
And said in the scratchy voice of his
You told me I was the homeliest
Well, gramps, you're wrong, Pearl is!

Meeskite, meeskite
No one ever saw a bigger
Meeskite, meeskite
Ev'rywhere a flaw
And maybe that is the reason why
I'm going to love her, until I die!

Meeskite, meeskite
Oh, it is a pleasure, she's a
Meeskite, meeskite
She's the one I'll treasure
For I thought there could never be
A bigger meeskite, than me!

[spoken]
Listen to what happened:

[singing]
And so they were married
And in a year she turned and smiled:
"I'm afraid, I am going to have a child".

Nine months she carried
Worrying how's that child would look
And all the cousins, well, worried too,
But what a turn fate took:

Gorgeous, gorgeous
They produced a baby that was
Gorgeous, gorgeous
Crowding 'round the cradle
All relatives awed and wooed
He ought to pose for a baby-food.

Gorgeous, gorgeous
Would I tell a lie?
He's simply
Gorgeous, gorgeous
Who'd have ever thought
That we will see such a flawless gem,
Out of two meeskites like them?

[spoken]
Wait! Wait! This story has a moral. All my stories have morals:

[singing]
Moral, moral
Yes indeed the story has a
Moral, moral
"Thou you not a beauty
It is nevertheless quite true
There may be beautiful things in you".

Meeskite, meeskite
Listen to a fable of the
Meeskite, meeskite
Anyone responsible for loveliness large or small
Is not a meeskite at all!