After seeing it on Catching the Waves, I am now testing the new embedded yahoo media player. Wow, it works! I think I will start adding mp3 links to most of my posts. Let me know if it bothers you or if it has technical problems. Yahoo Media Player was the brainchild of Lucas Gonze (who created the amazing webjay online playlist site in 2004). Click on the Play button to see the magic at work. 
Aha, I see that the yahoo player will automatically embed every mp3 link on a web page. So after playing this Bei Mir bist du Schon link, the player proceeded to the next mp3 on the page (which in this case is the fascinating but irrelevant 90 minute lecture about Internet freedom with James Fallows). Hey, that was a good talk, but I realize if you click on the Bei Mir Bist du Schon link, you hardly expect to hear James Fallows! To solve this problem, I guess I will just have to include multiple Bei Mir links (bummer!)
- Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (Andrew Sisters) . This is the catchy tune that took America by storm in 1937.
- Bei Mir Bist Du Schon (Martha Tilton). This version is so good that I am half-inclined to want to toss all my Andrew Sisters CDs away. This came from the classic Benny Goodman 1938 Carnegie Hall performance.
- Berlin Nachkriegersschlager version 1946. Wonderfully idiosyncratic.
- Charlie and the Orchestra gives a very bizarre Nazified version of the same song. (More).
- Mieczysław Fogg/Henryk Wars version. Fogg was a Polish singer and Wars was a Polish composer who worked in my favorite city, Lviv, Ukraine. (On youtube check out Ostatnia Niedziela, an absolutely beautiful tango by Fogg – unfortunately used by Nazis in concentration camps).
- Judy Garland Version. Not totally great, but still interesting. Fashioned as a kind of medlay.
- Budapest Klezmer Version. The Klezmer instrument gives it a European/ethnic feel. Actually this is a jazzy/scat version too.
- The Janice Siegel version gives a great understated version which calls a lot of attention to the band. Appeared in the film Swing Kids.
- The Louis Prima and Keely Version is a slower, slightly more melancholy version sung as a male-female duet.
By the way, if any random web surfer has found this page through a similar obsession, let me mention some other versions which give me shivers.
- I heard a jazzy Russian version on a Russian music cassette (from a band that did jazzy cover versions of various songs; I remember one they did of Don’t Cry for Me Argentina which was particularly terrific). Anyway, if anyone knows who did this version or how to listen to it online, let me know.
- The SwingChix Ukulele version of the Bei Mir on youtube is by my far my favorite modern version of the song. It is fresh, fun, silly, stylish and different.
- The Barry Sisters version of the song is jazzy and elegant. Sung completely in Yiddish with cello and piano jazz band.
- Yet another ukelele version with Sophie Madeleine, Jocelyn Mackenzie & Emily Hope Price. Love the woman humming a horn part.
- The Dutch female group Zazi puts in a fun upbeat version with adlibs and fun accents.
(By the way, I am officially NOT wondering about whether these versions ought to be available on archive.org).
This wiki page lists many versions of the song. I eagerly await the Pig Latin version of the song.
People who know me know about my obsession with the Andrew Sisters. I never tire of hearing their dynamite version of this song.
PS. I heartily recommend Swing It: The Andrew Sisters book by John Sforza (Read excerpts on Google books).
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