Zum-Zum-Zum, a Stein Song

In honor of National Tavern Month, we present the lyrics to "Zum-Zum-Zum, a Stein Song." Written by Oscar F. G. Day to accompany original music by Elmer Olson, this song was published in 1914 as sheet music by Minneapolis Brewing Company, to promote Zumalweiss beer. There was also a recorded version on a 78 r.p.m. record. 

Kind of a precursor to the radio and TV commercial jingle, it was a song that could be sung in the tavern while beering away the hours by the old piano. A pre-Prohibition classic. Minneapolis Brewing Company was best known as the brewers of Grain Belt beer until it went out of business in 1975. 




ZUM-ZUM-ZUM--A STEIN SONG

With your day's work completed,

With friends you are seated, 

In rathskeller, home or cafe,

What pleasure so pleasing,

From care your brain easing, 

As sipping the hours away

With joke and clear laughter, 

Who cares what comes after,

Dull care we have banished away

Each jolly good fellow,

Joins in with a mellow

“Here's ho” for it's time to be gay.

(Chorus:)

Zum Zum Zumalweiss

That is the music we all love to hear,

Room, room, room for good fellows

And welcome each one with a cheer

Let us join in a smile

For the beer that's worthwhile,

So here's to good old 

Zumalweiss and here's a health to all of us

With a laugh in each sip,

As it passes the lip,

That's the Zum Zum Zum Zumalweiss beer.

You may boast of your tipples,

Of champagne that ripples,

Or fizzes that fuddle your brain

Or urge of the bouquet,

Of sauterne or tokay,

Or sparkle of burgundy strain

Give me the pure shine and

The health from the stein-land,

That came when they taught how to brew

And I will be wiser

Than king, prince or kaiser,

Get wise to that Zumalweiss too.

(Repeat chorus)

Mysterious 1960s Korean Pop LP

I found this unusual foreign gem in the $2 bin at a record collectors' show in Minneapolis a few years ago, and had to snatch it up, even though I couldn't read a word on it except for "Oasis Records," "Seoul, South Korea," "High Fidelity," "Side 1," and "Side 2." Fine print on the back cover also references RCA and "Telefunken U-47," a type of microphone that Frank Zappa referenced on one of his records with sexual innuendo. ("You'll love it.")

On the front cover, a color photo of an attractive young Asian woman singer looking rather Westernized, wearing a halter top, bracelet and necklace with a flower in her hair above her left ear, a lit cigarette in her right hand, while standing at a microphone caressed by her left hand. A cloud of exhaled tobacco smoke hovers over her. That in itself seemed unusual, as I have heard that South Korean culture is quite conservative, and even now, women who smoke publicly are looked down on. The Oasis Records logo appears in the lower left corner, and a Shin Films logo in the lower right, suggesting it might be a movie soundtrack.

Listening to the record, the style was kind of early 1960s nightclub Asian jazz-pop, full orchestration, with kind of torch singer vocals, sung in Korean, sounding sweet and melodic. Not really a throaty smoker's voice.

After posting an image of the album cover on Flickr, someone commented, tipping me off that the singer's name is Jaeran Park (or Park Jae-ran), and the album title translated into "My Darling Has Passed Away, but His Song Still Remains." Upon further research, I found that she was born in 1938, and that this album came out in 1964, so she would have been about 26 years old at the time. She is actually well known in South Korea, putting out albums from the late 1950s until at least the early 1980s, and making numerous appearances on Korean television, some of which can be found on YouTube. The musical genre is called "K-Pop" in the trade, or Korean Popular. Apparently she also did some acting, which might help explain the Shin Pictures logo (wonder if the cover picture is from a movie). She looks a lot more conservative/traditional in most of the other images I have been able to find of her. The label, Oasis Records, in now an EMI subsidiary.

The other mystery would be, how did this copy end up in the United States, and ultimately in a $2 bin at a record collectors' show in Minneapolis?

A track from the album can be found here:

Another track from the album can be found here: