A popular song from 1928
Words and music by Irving Berlin
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
- Yascha Michaeloffsky, Russian lad
He came over from Petrograd
With a fiddle in his hand
Organized a first class band
Right away he wrote a melody
Just as Russian as it could be
Everybody hummed it soon
Yascha Michaeloffsky’s tune
Chorus
All night long they keep requesting
Yascha Michaeloffsky’s melody
People say it’s interesting
How the music goes from key to key
Many, many copies have been sold
Yascha’s rolling around in gold
But with all his wealth and fame
Yascha hasn’t changed his name
You can tell who wrote the music
On the copy stands the name of
Yascha Michaeloffsky
- All the relatives that Yascha had
Came right over from Petrograd
And they heard his music played
Saw the money that he made
Right away they said, “Oh Gosh, Oh Gee
Yascha did it so why can’t we?”
They were imitating soon
Yascha Michaeloffsky’s tune
Chorus
All night long they’re improvising
Yascha Michaeloffsky’s melody
It is really quite surprising
How they jump around from key to key
Finally they wrote a tune one night
But it didn’t come out quite right
So they tore it up and said
“Better we should go to bed”
No one writes such music like where
On the copy stands the name of
Yascha Michaeloffsky
Sung here by Laurence Rubenstein: