Music Matters

Next week is Purim. Those of you familiar with the Biblical story will recall that this most joyful festival commemorates the salvation of the Jews from the machinations of the wicked Haman, who sought to annihilate the entire Jewish People. In Israel, it is celebrated with fancy-dress parties and, in many towns and cities, with an Adloyada – a carnival-type parade with floats and music and street performances. This year, however, many people are saying that such joyous festivities are out of place and not in keeping with the state of mourning which has engulfed the nation since October 7th last year, or with the fact that 134 Israeli hostages, men, women and children (the youngest, Kfir Bibas, just one year old) are still being held prisoner in Gaza, and that many families are now mourning the deaths of their sons and daughters killed in the fighting in Gaza or in the north of Israel.

Others are saying that it is more important than ever to celebrate Purim this year, to maintain morale, to show the world (and our enemies, in particular) that the spirit of Israel cannot be crushed, and because this is exactly what we are fighting for – to live meaningful lives as Jews in the Jewish homeland.
Purim, they say, is THE festival par excellence which commemorates, above all others, the failure of an enemy to destroy Israel, and the victory of the Jewish People over those who hate us. Moreover, Haman was a descendant of Amalek. What more fitting a festival to celebrate now, when we are fighting a modern-day Amalek?

Seventy years ago, on March 17th 1954, the day before Purim, a bus carrying passengers from Eilat to Tel Aviv was ambushed by Arab terrorists from Jordan, near the Scorpions’ Ascent, a narrow road in the eastern Negev Desert, and 11 Israelis were murdered. The country was plunged into mourning and many people felt that the Purim celebrations should be cancelled. But the Prime Minister, Moshe Sharett, thought otherwise. He felt that something must be done to boost national moral. By chance, visiting a club frequented by members of Mapai (the ruling party), he espied the songwriting duo Yaakov Orland and Mordechai Zeira, led them off to a side room and demanded that they write “a happy song” to raise people’s spirits. Rumour has it that he left them with a bottle of brandy and locked them in.
A few hours later, they emerged with “A Happy Song”, (שיר שמח – Shir Sameach) exactly as the Prime Minister had ordered.

Translation:

Even if our heads are bowed,
And sorrow surrounds us,
Come – let us take fire
From the inherent joy which resides within us.

Hai, hai , Come and let us be filled with joy,
As far as the eye can see (or: as full as the spring)
Hai, hai, Sing! Rise!
Rise and let the wine burn.

Hai, hai, hai diddle hai…etc.

Arise and burn like fire,
And set us alight with strength.
Woe to the one who despairs.
Tonight, we must rejoice!

Hai, hai! Tonight, everyone who breathes (or: whose has a soul) will be redeemed!
Every person in Israel,
Shall have a spark of comfort!

Hai, hai, hai diddle hai etc.

********

This year, I am taking an Ascolot – Open University course on the history of popular Hebrew song. The format is such that each lecture deals with a particular songwriter or singer’s life and his or her influence on popular Israeli music as well as, inevitably, the influence of contemporary events on his or her music. I thought about this a few days ago, while listening to a farmer from the north of Israel being interviewed on one of the morning news programmes.
You don’t get to hear about this much (if at all) outside Israel, but hundreds of thousands of Israelis – refugees – have had to be evacuated from the border regions, both in the north and in the south, including many farmers, and those who have refused to leave, can’t get workers because of the danger of living and working on the border, where enemy rockets or artillery fire can strike without warning (a 15-second Red Alert is, to all intents and purposes, without warning – and the Iron Dome system only works against incoming missiles, not against artillery). As a result, Israeli agriculture has taken a severe blow.

How very little has changed, I mused, from the days when Yechiel Mohar and Moshe Wilenski wrote “Negev Lullaby” (שיר ערש נגבי – Shir Eres Negbi). It was 1955 and attacks by terrorists from the Egyptian-controlled Sinai peninsula and, especially, the Gaza Strip, were a frequent occurrence (and, indeed, were one of the causes of Israel’s Sinai Campaign the following year). The kibbutzim and moshavim in the western Negev (the area now known as the Gaza Envelope) were then, as now, prime targets. Constant vigilance was required.
In this song, performed by the incomparable Shoshana Damari, a mother sings her son to sleep, while explaining why his father cannot be with them. I listened to this song at last month’s lecture. The audience are cordially invited to join in. I did – but could not finish the song. It’s hard to sing when you are crying.

Translation:

A wind, a wind over our home
And a star conceals its light.
Daddy is there, ploughing our fields.
Sleep, sleep, son.

Why is he ploughing by night
Instead of putting me to bed?
Our land has no leisure, son.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Darkness, darkness in our fields
And the candle’s light grows faint.
The darkness will not frighten us.
Sleep, sleep, son.

What is the sound I hear
And the frightening, tumultuous din?
It’s the tractor, swallowing up a furrow.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Something is lurking out there in the silence
And the jackals are clicking their teeth.
Where is Daddy drawing a furrow?
Sleep, sleep, son.

If he’s ploughing the fields of our farm,
Why is he carrying a pistol and a Sten gun?
There can be no deep furrow without a weapon.
Sleep, son. Sleep, son.

Sleep, son.

********

All of this brings me to the Eurovision Song Contest. After the European Broadcasting Union had, at least, the guts to stand up to the demands to ban Israel from the contest this year (demands from the Scandinavian countries and Spain, in particular – where hatred of Israel runs particularly high, it seems) – they found a way (or so they thought) to prevent Israel’s participation without being too obviously antisemitic, by using the pretext that Israel’s entry, October Rain, broke competition rules by being “political” (ie. it referenced the October 7th atrocities and the national grief).

Writers of the history
Stand with me
Look into my eyes and see
People go away but never say goodbye

Someone stole the moon tonight
Took my light
Everything is black and white
Who’s the fool who told you
Boys don’t cry?

Hours and hours and flowers
Life is no game for the cowards
Why does time go wild?
Every day I’m losing my mind
Holding on in this mysterious ride

Dancing in the storm
We got nothing to hide
Take me home
And leave the world behind
And I promise you that never again
I’m still wet from this October rain
October Rain

Living in a fantasy
Ecstasy
Everything’s meant to be
We shall pass but love will never die

Hours and hours and flowers
Life is no game for the cowards
Why does time go wild?
Every day I’m losing my mind
Holding on in this mysterious ride

Dancing in the storm
We got nothing to hide
Take me home
And leave the world behind
And I promise you that never again
I’m still wet from this October rain
October Rain
October Rain

לא נשאר אוויר לנשום
אין מקום
אין אותי מיום ליום
כולם ילדים טובים אחד אחד

(There’s no air left to breath
There’s no space
I’m gone day by day
All of them are good kids, each one of them)

I ask you – is this any more political than Ukraine’s 2016 winning entry “1944”, which contained lyrics such as “When strangers are coming, They come to your house, They kill you all, And say We’re not guilty, not guilty,” and clearly referenced the Soviets’ mass deportation of Crimean Tatars in 1944? I would say rather LESS!

The EBU demanded the lyrics be changed or that another song be submitted. Israel had, in fact, submitted an alternative song – Dance Forever, but it, too, was rejected as being “political”.

Running, city lights fighting my mind
Hiding, I don’t know what’s right
Take me to the right road
There’s no more time and I can’t go wrong
Breathe in, I know that I’m strong
I break all the chains, I’m on the edge now
Watch me fly away
Oh dance like an angel
Oh you will remember that I will dance forever
I will dance again.
Oh dance like an angel
Drowning in the sunrise, my heart is so cold
But my soul is on fire
Someone is calling from paradise
Listen, the hope doesn’t stop, it just spreads its wings
It is like a million stars that suddenly light up in the sky
Heart on fire, I’m a fighter
Don’t stop the music, turn it up louder
I spread out my wings, flying through the sky
Hear violins, angels don’t cry, they only sing
Still feel the ground beneath my feet.
Oh dance like an angel
Oh you will remember that I will dance forever
I will dance again
Dance like an angel (we will dance forever).

The claim made by the EBU committee was that this song was clearly about the Israelis massacred at the Nova music festival. Controversy broke out in Israel too. Some people said we should refuse to be dictated to by the EBU, who were trying to silence any manifestation of our national grief. Others said that this year, more than ever, when attempts were being made to ban Israel from any and every international stage, it was important that we take part in the song contest, even if it meant making a few changes to the lyrics. Still others insisted that the song representing Israel should, in any case, be in Hebrew, not in English – pointing out the fact that recent winners have included songs in languages other than English – such as Portugal in 2017 or Italy in 2021.
I should add that spokespeople from the Israeli selection committee revealed that all but one of the songs submitted to them for consideration, had clearly been influenced by the national mood.

Another bone of contention here in Israel was the way the song had been selected – by a committee, rather than by the usual viewer voting method – as well as the fact that the Committee had allowed non-Israeli songwriters to submit songs for consideration.

It looked as if Israel would not, after all, be taking part in the competition this year, until our President took a hand and persuaded KAN, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, of the importance of taking part in the competition this year, of all years, and that making small changes to the lyrics of a song was a small price to pay in return. So KAN backtracked, asked the writers of October Rain to change the lyrics (not all that easy, in view of the fact that the EBU refused to say exactly which part of the lyrics they found to be “political”), and submitted the “new” song” to the EBU selection committee.
The result was Hurricane. (Watch it on Youtube for subtitles. Although the song is in English, there are a few lines in Hebrew at the end.)

On the face of it – there’s nothing political. In fact, it was presented at the song’s official unveiling as a song about a young woman emerging from a personal crisis. Well, maybe. But I guarantee you that every Israeli watching this video and listening to the lyrics, can identify with that same “personal crisis”. It began on October 7th 2023 – and most of us are still submerged. Who can look at the dancers and not think of the thousands of Nova Festival goers, desperately looking for shelter from the missiles flying overhead, or from the storm of Hamas terrorist bullets raging all around them?
Who can see them fall, at 1:03, and fail to realise that they represent the hundreds murdered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists and by “innocent, uninvolved Gazan civilians”?
And the dancers clinging together at 2:06, and again, at 2:16, only to be torn apart? Who can fail to see the reference to Noa Argamani, kidnapped from the Festival, documented being carried off on a motor-cycle, crying “Don’t kill me”, stretching out her hands to her boyfriend, Avinatan Or, who was also kidnapped?
Who can listen to the words “Baby promise me you’ll hold me again, I’m still broken from this hurricane” and not see, in one’s mind’s eye, one of the hostages who had the good fortune to be released, sending a message in her heart to her beloved, still in captivity – or maybe one of the young women still being held by the terrorists, praying that they may yet have the chance to embrace each other once again?

Europe – you didn’t want to hear about the October Rain?
So be it. Receive the Hurricane.