Background information about the recordings can be found below the audio selections.
“You Have Become So Terribly Blonde Lately”
Dol Dauber’s Dance Orchestra; Austin Egen, vocal
(HMV B-5905 mx BW 3107) January 6, 1930
“Oh Donna Clara”
Dol Dauber’s Dance Orchestra; Austin Egen, vocal
(HMV B-5905 mx BW-3111) January 7, 1930
Here’s a British HMV record I found in the Edward Mitchell Collection. With a title like “You Have Become So Terribly Blonde Lately,” how could anyone resist giving such a record a spin to see what it was all about, especially since British labels tended to issue material that was far more risque than what American labels felt comfortable with?
It turned out not to be anything near what I was expecting. In fact, it isn’t even a British recording. And despite the English language title, the lyrics are actually in German!
Both sides of this record were recorded in Vienna, Austria.
This is not the first time I have come across a British pressing of a recording from a German-speaking country released with an English language title and no mention on the label that the lyrics are not in English. Interestingly, it does not appear to have been issued in Germany by Gramophone Co./HMV’s German subsidiary label, Electrola – only on HMV in Great Britain and in the countries that had been part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I was able to find an English translation of the song’s lyrics:
Lately you’ve become so terribly blond,
Become so blond,
Become so blond.Your hair has become more yellow than the pale moon,
Become the moon.
How come?Before you were once black like the night.
Who would have ever thought that?Lately you’ve become so terribly blond,
Become so blond.
Yes, how come?
I also came across a comment someone put online explaining that the lyrics poke fun at a fad occurring at the time, which had ladies dying their hair blonde to emulate certain film stars, such as Lillian Harvey, who was enormously popular.
Originally titled “Du bist in letzter Zeit so schrecklich blond geworden,” the song was co-composed by Franz Grothe, Fritz Rotter and bandleader Dajos Béla, whose band also made a recording of it.
The flip side features a nice rendition of “Oh Donna Clara,” which achieved worldwide popularity and was recorded by countless artists in the early 1930s and the decades since.
The song, originally titled “Tango Milonga,” was written by Polish composer Jerzy Petersburski and was first performed in the 1929 musical revue Warszawa w kwiatach (Warsaw in Bloom). When the song made its way to Vienna, it caught the attention of the music publishing house Wiener Boheme Verlag, which purchased its rights. German librettist Fritz Löhner-Beda provided it with German lyrics and renamed it “Oh, Donna Clara.” Löhner-Beda would later be murdered at the Monowitz concentration camp in 1942.
“Oh, Donna Clara” was included in the musical production Die Wunder-Bar; ein Speil im Nachtleben (The Wonder Bar, A Play About Night Life) which opened on February 2, 1930 at Vienna’s Kammerspiel Theater. The recording here was made less than a month before the production’s opening. It was common for record labels to record songs from upcoming shows so that they would be available in time for audiences to purchase them.
On December 5, 1930, Die Wunder-Bar opened in London as The Wonder-Bar, as well as in New York on May 17, 1931. As a result, several bands in the United States and Britain made 1931 recordings of “Oh, Donna Clara.”
Violinist Dol Dauber led a band that was popular during the 1920s and 1930s in Germany, Austria, and, particularly, Czechoslovakia. Despite being Jewish and spending World War II in Czechoslovakia under Nazi occupation, he somehow managed to avoid being sent to a concentration camp and survived the Holocaust. His son, however, was not so fortunate and perished at Dachau.
The vocals on both sides are provided by Austrian-American pianist, composer, and actor Austin Egen. However, as was often the case at the time, no vocal credit is provided on the label. Egen made a very large number of vocal recordings, accompanying himself on the piano as well as with many top European bands of the 1920s and 1930s. He is one of my favorite German language crooners of the period.