Tel Aviv, Israel — If you’re watching TV and suddenly someone begins a horrifyingly graphic medical procedure, you can close your eyes. If you’re eating a sandwich and suddenly you taste the distinct flavor of soiled gym socks, you can spit out your bite of hoagie. But unfortunately for us humans, our earballs are the one thing you can’t turn off in the event that someone is abusing them. The abuse to my aural orifices in this case is the above song, in conjunction with several other unavoidable tunes of the same genre.
And thus, I introduce you to Rock Mizrachi, or pop music influenced primarily by the sounds of the Middle East, sung in Hebrew. It’s arguably the most popular music in Israel, on the radio, in many bars, and, always, ALWAYS in cabs. It’s inescapable. Believe me I’ve tried.
One of the worst purpetrators — I mean, most popular artists — is Moshe Peretz. It seems to me that everyone whose last name is Peretz is a potential polluter of the airwaves, since another of the most popular Rock Mizrachi artists is named Kobi Peretz, with no relation that I know of, beyond their alliance in hurting my ears.
But I digress. I am learning to like it. I have no choice. I have taken a page out of Yosemite Sam’s book and decided that if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. I did look into “beating them” and it involved a complicated surgical procedure to remove my ears. So to remain marketable for employment, I decided to plaster on a smile and force myself to pretend to like it. Here is “Elaich” (“אליך”) by Moshe Peretz if you are musically masochistic.
1 year ago • Notes