Eshet Hayil
These words of King Solomon from Proverbs (Ch 31), in praise of the God-fearing woman, are traditionally sung in many Jewish homes after Shalom Alechem and before Kiddush. They can be understood both as in praise of the merits of the lady of the house, and of the people of Israel who are metaphorically "married" to the Almighty.
The singing of Eshet Hayil was introduced by the kabbalists and is therefore not part of the Western Sephardi custom, so despite its popularity we often leave it out and go straight to Kiddush [shocked silence].
The first recording is a version of the famous and ubiquitous Modzitzer niggun, composed by Ben Zion Shenker in 1953:
The mystery is what tune people sung before 1953, because I've never heard an alternative that can rival it, and everybody - but everybody - seems to use this tune.
For some time I'd been on the look out for an alternative, as I felt the need a change from the repeated, stylized use of the beautiful but mournful harmonic minor that I feel is so overused in Hassidic/Kleyzmer/shtetl-style music.
The following two re-purposed melodies work well, and we now use them both in our home, chosing one or the other as the mood takes us.
This first alternative is a grand, little known melody for Adon Olam from Amsterdam (S&P):
Eshet Hayil (AmsterdamAdonOlam)
This second alternative is adaption of a lively English folk tune. The structure of the original is AA'B, and I've adjusted it to AA'B'B: