Everyday we learn something new !

"...But finally, the most Jewish song by the Rolling Stones was their ode to that most Jewish of cities, New York. “Shattered” — from their 1978 comeback album, “Some Girls” — took on the punk-rock movement, which had challenged groups like the Stones, once thought to have been rebellious but now seen as the height of corporate excess. Lyrically, the song delved into the prevailing gestalt of the city of the time: the era of Mayor Abraham Beame, rising crime rates, recession, austerity budgets, near-bankruptcy, and “Ford to City: Drop Dead” headlines. The city’s decline in those years included the loss of its once thriving, mostly Jewish garment industry, which Jagger immortalizes in “Shattered” with what is perhaps the only use of Yiddish in a Top 40 hit: “Shmatta shmatta shmatta, I can’t give it away on Seventh Avenue.”

Full article here

Secret 1

HMN

Great research effort, having to dress up some obscure BS Keith quotes because he failed to notice the existence of Prince Rupert Loewenstein. Or Allen Klein for that matter. The "secret jewish history" of the Stones remained a secret to that guy

And 1977 had been the year of Son Of Sam.

All you people in New York City, I know you're going broke, but I know you're tough, you're Hot Stuff

Bill German’s book ”Under their thumb” briefly mentions ”schmatta” in of the early chapters.

Funny enough I know this word from childhood. Never connect it with Yiddish though. In Western Ukraine 'shmata' means a piece of a dirty cloth that is used to wipe out flour or similar.

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ironbelly
Funny enough I know this word from childhood. Never connect it with Yiddish though. In Western Ukraine 'shmata' means a piece of a dirty cloth that is used to wipe out flour or similar.

Thanks IB for the addition

HMN

I've always understood it to mean the leftovers in a garment factory which are then used, as wanted/needed, as rags to clean surfaces etc..........

This is what came up when I googled Schmatta...........

"The term “schmatta” (also spelled shmatta, shmate, schmatte, schmattah or shmatteh) is a Yiddish word that typically is defined as a rag or ragged piece of clothing. Some scholars trace “schmatta” back to the Polish term “szmata” (which, fortunately, does not have numerous alternative spellings) which also means a rag".

Funny, a rug is Swedish is "matta"...

I learned something today!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-08-28 02:34 by stevecardi.

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Stoneage
Funny, a rug is Swedish is "matta"...

And of course, a rug in English is also a mat........(although a rug is usually more luxurious than a mat but both are on the floor.............



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-08-28 03:14 by EddieByword.

FYI — the word, “shimatta” means “oops”, “damn it”, “gracious me” etc. in Japanese, an interjection people spontaneously utter when they have made a mistake. Okay, it has “i” in it, but sounds pretty close.

You learn something new everyday

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EddieByword
I've always understood it to mean the leftovers in a garment factory which are then used, as wanted/needed, as rags to clean surfaces etc..........

This is what came up when I googled Schmatta...........

"The term “schmatta” (also spelled shmatta, shmate, schmatte, schmattah or shmatteh) is a Yiddish word that typically is defined as a rag or ragged piece of clothing. Some scholars trace “schmatta” back to the Polish term “szmata” (which, fortunately, does not have numerous alternative spellings) which also means a rag".

Hence "the rag trade" = clothing/fashion industry. Seventh Avenue was the fashion district of New York, and I believe to some extent still is.

(For the really ancient, there was a British sitcom called The Rag Trade about a clothing factory, way back when.)

Great post! I learned something too!

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ironbelly
Funny enough I know this word from childhood. Never connect it with Yiddish though. In Western Ukraine 'shmata' means a piece of a dirty cloth that is used to wipe out flour or similar.

Ironbelly, I've been looking forward to you coming back from vacation/holiday!

It exists in the UK too - same origin and meanings but usually spelt schmutter here: I can't remember where I know it from (possibly the Rag Trade?) but I didn't learn it from Shattered.

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Nikkei
Great research effort, having to dress up some obscure BS Keith quotes because he failed to notice the existence of Prince Rupert Loewenstein. Or Allen Klein for that matter. The "secret jewish history" of the Stones remained a secret to that guy

Don't think so, Nikkei. I remember Keith talking about Klein way back in the days that Klein (with the five Stones standing behind him) pressed a great record deal (for those days, and much better than that of the Beatles) out of DECCA records in London. Keith knew very well, but doesn't like the idea of people saying that the Rolling Stones success was made by "the jewish connection(s)".
Some of those guys were clever business men, but clever business men of other cultures would have had the same success, because ... they would have been working with THE ROLLING STONES

I'm a GHOST living in a ghost town

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Re: Shmatta Shmatta Shmatta
Posted by: ironbelly ()
Date: August 27, 2021 17:09

Funny enough I know this word from childhood. Never connect it with Yiddish though. In Western Ukraine 'shmata' means a piece of a dirty cloth that is used to wipe out flour or similar.

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Re: Shmatta Shmatta Shmatta
Posted by: Stoneage ()
Date: August 28, 2021 01:29

Funny, a rug is Swedish is "matta"...

huh well i would hazard a guess that the word and its various forms probably reflects the legacy of jewish communitys in europe that worked largely in the garment industry

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And of course, a rug in English is also a mat........(although a rug is usually more luxurious than a mat but both are on the floor.............

wow i've known about the yiddish meaning of shmatta in the song for years and never made the connection to the english word mat
launguge is a funny thing

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ProfessorWolf

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Re: Shmatta Shmatta Shmatta
Posted by: ironbelly ()
Date: August 27, 2021 17:09

Funny enough I know this word from childhood. Never connect it with Yiddish though. In Western Ukraine 'shmata' means a piece of a dirty cloth that is used to wipe out flour or similar.

Quote

Re: Shmatta Shmatta Shmatta
Posted by: Stoneage ()
Date: August 28, 2021 01:29

Funny, a rug is Swedish is "matta"...

huh well i would hazard a guess that the word and its various forms probably reflects the legacy of jewish communitys in europe that worked largely in the garment industry

Quote

And of course, a rug in English is also a mat........(although a rug is usually more luxurious than a mat but both are on the floor.............

wow i've known about the yiddish meaning of shmatta in the song for years and never made the connection to the english word mat
language is a funny thing

You're right about that.........

The English mat is also connected with Latin - the Latin for mat being mat and German being Matte and also Welsh being mat.......

Then of course there is mattress, which, in days of yore was a big sack filled with rags (if you were rich) and straw if you weren't.........but according to Google is current "Middle English: via Old French and Italian from Arabic ma?ra? ‘carpet or cushion’, from ?ara?a ‘to throw’" ... so..... anybody's guess really...........



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2021-08-29 02:19 by EddieByword.

Thing is, no matter how much I want to believe this is the word he sings, the words he sings just do not match how I think this word ("shmatta")would be pronounced. Maybe I just don't have the Yiddish or whatever accent down, but sounds much more to me like he is singing nonsense like "schmacking" and not something that sounds like "whats the matta (matter)" as in "shmatta".


But I haven't listened to the song in probably five years so maybe its just my memory is faulty.

jb