Donna Donna (דאַנאַ דאַנאַ “Dana Dana”, also known as דאָס קעלבל “Dos Kelbl” — The Calf) is a Yiddish theater song about a calf being led to slaughter. The song’s title is a variant on Adonai, a Jewish name for God. Dana Dana was written for the Aaron Zeitlin stage production Esterke (1940–41) with music composed by Sholom Secunda. The lyrics, score, parts, and associated material are available online in the Yiddish Theater Digital Archives. The lyric sheet is in typewritten Yiddish and handwritten Yiddish lyrics also appear in the piano score. The text underlay in the score and parts is otherwise romanized in a phonetic transcription oriented toward stage German. The orchestra plays the Dana Dana melody at several points in Esterke. The original is 2/4, in G minor for a duo of a man and a woman, choral with the orchestral accompaniment. Secunda wrote “Dana-” for the orchestral score and “Dana Dana” for the vocal scores. The Yiddish text was written with roman alphabet. He wrote for the choral score “andantino” (somewhat slowly) and “sempre staccato” (play staccato always). The melody of the introduction was also used at the end of the song. He wrote “piu mosso” (more rapidly) for the refrain and some passages that emphasize the winds. First, a woman (Secunda wrote “she”) sings four bars and then the man (Secunda wrote “he”) sings the next four. They sing together from the refrain. Although singing the third part of “Dana Dana” (=”Dana Dana Dana Dana…”) the man sometimes sings lower than the melody using disjunct motions. The melody is refrained. Then “he” sings the melody, and “she” sometimes sings “Dana”, other times sings “Ah” with a high voice or technical passage. Secunda wrote “molto rit.” (suddenly much more slowly) for the ending of the first verse. There are some difference between the original and the melody that are well known. Secunda wrote “ha ha ha” for the choral score with the broken chords. Secunda translated Dana Dana into English (changing the vocalization of dana to dona), but this version failed to gain popularity. The lyrics were translated again in the mid-1950s by Arthur Kevess and Teddi Schwartz, and the song became well known with their text. It became especially popular after being recorded by Joan Baez in 1960, Donovan in 1965 and Patty Duke in 1968. Dana Dana has been translated into and recorded in many other languages including German, French, Japanese, Hebrew, Russian and Vietnamese. It has been sung by performers including Nechama Hendel, André Zweig, Chava Alberstein, Esther Ofarim, Theodore Bikel, Karsten Troyke, Sumi Jo, Claude François, and Hélène Rollès together with Dorothée.

Joan Chandos Baez /ˈbaɪ.ɛz/ (born January 9, 1941 as Joan Chandos Báez) is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice. Baez has a distinctive vocal style, with a strong vibrato. Her recordings include many topical songs and material dealing with social issues. Baez began her career performing in coffeehouses in Boston and Cambridge, and rose to fame as an unbilled performer at the 1959 Newport Folk Festival. She began her recording career in 1960, and achieved immediate success. Her first three albums, Joan Baez, Joan Baez, Vol. 2, and Joan Baez in Concert all achieved gold record status, and stayed on the charts for two years. Baez has had a popular hit song with “Diamonds & Rust” and hit covers of Phil Ochs’s “There but for Fortune” and The Band’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down”. Other songs associated with Baez include “Farewell, Angelina”, “Love Is Just a Four-Letter Word”, “Joe Hill”, “Sweet Sir Galahad” and “We Shall Overcome”. She performed three of the songs at the 1969 Woodstock Festival, helped to bring the songs of Bob Dylan to national prominence, and has displayed a lifelong commitment to political and social activism in the fields of nonviolence, civil rights, human rights and the environment. Baez has performed publicly for over 53 years, releasing over 30 albums. Fluent in Spanish as well as in English, she has also recorded songs in at least six other languages. She is regarded as a folk singer, although her music has diversified since the 1960s, encompassing everything from folk rock and pop to country and gospel music. Although a songwriter herself, Baez is generally regarded as an interpreter of other people’s work, having recorded songs by The Allman Brothers Band, The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Bob Dylan, Violeta Parra, Woody Guthrie, The Rolling Stones, Pete Seeger, Paul Simon, Stevie Wonder, Leonard Cohen, and many others. In recent years, she has found success interpreting songs of modern songwriters such as Ryan Adams, Steve Earle and Natalie Merchant.

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