Music: Where Does It Hurt You?

A vous tout de vey a vous, cherie?

Please tell me what bothers you,babee.

Is it something I have done,

That has hurt my precious one?

Let me hold you close while you confide in me.

Crooned by throaty-voiced Marion Mann, Bob Crosby’s vocalist at Manhattan’s Hotel New Yorker, these words last week first puzzled, then annoyed listeners, who failed to catch the meaning of the French. When they asked for more light, Bandleader Crosby himself was stumped.

The tune, like 1937’s Bei Mir Bist Du Schön (TIME, Dec. 27, 1937), sounded unmistakably, dumpily Yiddish. Sure enough, after long investigation the song’s publishers (Sing Song Music Corp.) finally admitted that A vous tout de vey was only so much French dressing. A Bronxier way of spelling: Avu tut dir vey. Meaning: “Where does it hurt you?”