Miron, born in 1919, left Poland at the age of 19 in the late 1930s, thus avoiding the Holocaust. In 1941, while serving in the Jewish Brigade of the British forces, he composed the melody for lyrics written by Chagiz. The song became popular in the British Mandate of Palestine and was played on the Kol Yisrael radio service.
Julius Grossman, who did not know who composed the song, wrote the so-called third part of "Tzena" circa November 1946. After hearing Pete Seeger performing Tzena, [1] with The Weavers as backing, Gordon Jenkins made an arrangement of the song for the Weavers with English lyrics. [2] The Jenkins/Weavers version, released by Decca Records under catalog number 27077, was one side of a two-sided hit, reaching No. 2 on the Billboard magazine charts in 1950 while the flip side, "Goodnight Irene," reached No. 1.[3]
Cromwell Music Inc., a subsidiary of Richmond/TRO, claimed the rights to the song, and had licensed the Decca release. They alleged the music to have been composed by a person named Spencer Ross. In reality this turned out to be a fictitious persona constructed to hide the melody's true authorship. Mills Music, Inc., Miron's publisher, sued Cromwell and won. The presiding judge also dismissed Cromwell's claim that the melody was based on a traditional folk song and was thus in the public domain.[4]
Covers
The original English lyrics, written by Mitchell Parish, were greatly altered in the version recorded by the Weavers. Other charting versions in 1950 were recorded by Vic Damone (Billboard pos. 6), Ralph Flanagan & His Orchestra, and Mitch Miller's Orchestra.[5]
The New York Times obituary of Issachar Miron lists the following artists who covered "Tsena Tsena": "It was sung in some 39 languages and was performed and recorded by numerous leading artists in the United States, including Pete Seeger, Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, Judy Garland, Dusty Springfield, Connie Francis, Vic Damone, Chubby Checker, the Smothers Brothers and Arlo Guthrie."[6]
In the 1980s, Israeli folk star Ran Eliran recorded the song, along with 14 more songs by Miron, to make the album Sing to Me Eretz Yisrael.
Phranc recorded the song for his 1998 album Milkman.
In October 2012 a single was released by RebbeSoul, featuring musicians and singers from South America, Africa, the UK, USA, and Israel, singing in their native languages[13]
Transliterated: Tzena, tzena, tzena, tzena ha-banot u-r’ena ħayalim ba-moshava; Al na, Al na, Al na, Al na, al na titħab’ena Mi-ben ħayal, ish tzava.
Translated: "Go out, go out, go out girls and see soldiers in the moshava; Do not, do not, do not hide yourself away from a virtuous man [a pun on the word for "soldier"], an army man."
