An Ethel Rosenberg Songbook

She was singing for a strike benefit in 1936 when she met and fell in love with Julius Rosenberg.

Had politics not intervened, Ethel Rosenberg might be remembered today as a gifted vocalist instead of as the woman convicted and executed, along with her husband Julius, for giving atomic bomb secrets to Russia.  Born in 1915 on New York's Lower East Side to a poor immigrant family, Ethel Greenglass began singing publicly while still in high school. After graduation, she took singing lessons and taught herself sight reading in order to audition for the much-lauded singing group, Schola Cantorum.  At 18, she became the group's youngest member and twice performed with it at Carnegie Hall.  She was singing for a strike benefit in 1936 when she met and fell in love with Julius Rosenberg.

Politically active in Communist circles throughout and after World War II, the Rosenbergs were arrested in 1950 and charged with spying for the Soviet Union, I've told the story of their final three years in the play and podcast The Passion of Ethel Rosenberg. 

The songs I've collected here are ones Ethel cited as her favorites in the letters she and Julius exchanged while in prison, I don't know where she first heard some of them or who sang her favorite versions, but all of them are textually and melodically authentic.  

RADIO FAVORITES

Not surprisingly, three of Ethel's favorites were songs that made their radio debut in 1950, the year of the Rosenbergs' imprisonment.  They were “Goodnight Irene,” by Gordon Jenkins and the Weavers (a quartet that would later be blacklisted for its leftist politics). Patti Page's “Tennessee Waltz” and Mario Lanza's light-operatic “Be My Love.”

“Be My Love”

“Tennessee Waltz”

“Goodnight Irene”

SONGS JULIUS TAUGHT HER

As an economic casualty of the Great Depression Ethel never went to college.  But Julius earned a degree in electrical engineering at City University of New York.  He also learned Spanish and taught Ethel the songs “Ay-Ay-Ay” and “Tango de las Rosas.”  He also introduced her to “No Pasaran” (“They shall not pass!,” the  rallying cry of the anti=fascist forces in the Spanish Civil War.)

“Ay-Ay-Ay”

“Tango de las Rosas”

“No Pasaran”

FAR FROM THE LOWER EAST SIDE

Burl Ives included the folk standard “Down in the Valley” in his 1946 alhum. Ballads and Folk Songs,Volume 2.  Like the Rosenbergs, he embraced left wing politics until he was blacklisted, whereupon in 1952, he caved in and named names of fellow lefties to the House Un-American Activities Committee.  Ethel and Julius were given the same opportunity and promised they would be spared exeuction if they cooperated.  They refused and were electrocuted on June 19, 1953, the day after their 14th wedding anniversary.

“Down in the Valley”

AN EARLY SINATRA FAN

In 1945, rising star Frank Sinatra recorded “The House I Live In,” a tribute to what we now call “diversity.”  It was a lyrical summary of Ethel's own outlook and became one of her favorites.  The song was co-written by Earl Robinson and Lewis Allen.  Allen's real name was Abel Meeropol, who also wrote the classic anti-lynching song, “Strange Fruit.”  After the Rosenbergs' execution, he adopted the couple's two sons. Michael and Robert, who took the Meeropol surname.”

“The House I Live In”

SONGS OF MANY LANDS

Ethel was especially taken by these three songs from the 1949 album Songs of Many Lands, recorded by the folk duo Marais & Miranda--”Ihashe,” a Zulu chant, “Johnnie With the Bandy Legs,” from South Africa and the Australian standby, “Waltzing Matilda.”

“Ihashe”

“Johnnie With the Bandy Legs”

“Waltzing Matilda”

SONGS OF THE MARTYRED 

It was only natural that Ethel was drawn to songs about freedom fighters.  Joe Hill was a songwriter and labor organizer who was convicted of murder—some say framed for the crime—and executed in Utah by a firing squad in 1915.  The song here that honors him is sung by Paul Robeson, the celebrated actor, singer and political activist.  Kevin Barry was an Irish resistance fighter against the English and was hanged in 1920 the age of 18.  In my play, I have Ethel singing a snippet from the song that parallels her own dilemma and impending execution.  The singer here—and of “Peat Bog Soldiers”--is  Pete Seeger, a fabled activist in his own right and a founding member of the Weavers,  He was blacklisted and sentenced to prison (but never served) for refusing to “cooperate” with the House Un-American Activities Committee, as Burl Ives had. “Peat Bog Soldiers” tells the story of suspected communists and socialists who were imprisoned in Germany by the Nazis during the early 1930s.

“Joe Hill”

“Kevin Barry”

“Peat Bog Soldiers”

For deeper insights into the complex and powerful woman Ethel Rosenberg was, see The Rosenberg Letters: AComplete Edition of the Prison Correspondence of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, edited by their oldest son, Michael Meeropol.