No war, but a war song leads the Israeli charts

Ami Kaufman By Ami Kaufman November 21, 2010 | Edit
A few hours after I read Yuval Ben-Ami’s wonderful post on the long lost gentleness in Israeli culture, I got another reminder of how right he was as I drove my car down to pick up the girls from day care. I was listening to the weekly hit parade on Army Radio, Galgalatz, and it turns out that for the past few weeks, the number one spot has been held by a young bloke of 22 named Idan Amedi, and his tear jerking, uber-plain song called “The Pain of Warriors”.

Amedi was the runner up in the last season of Kochav Nolad (A star is born, the Israeli American Idol), and throughout the show he reminded us of his military background. All combat soldiers in the IDF are not just called soldiers, they’re called “lochamim”, warriors, to differentiate them from those other, regular soldiers who sit behind desks in air-conditioned offices. Amedi himself served in the combat engineering corps, who are not only world renowned for their disarming of mines, but also for driving the huge D9 armored tractors, which usually demolish homes and olive groves, but have also been known to run over the occasional peace activist.

As far as I know, we’re not at war right now. Yes, we’re in a state of war, and always on the verge of war, but you know what I mean – we’re not bombing Gaza, or Beirut or even Tehran. Soldiers aren’t dropping like flies, thank God. Which is why it’s so peculiar to me that this particular song is topping the charts.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HERJ6o6AMxk&feature=related[/youtube]

Check out the lyrics:

First evening I’m alone,
sitting and writing you a letter
about all the things that were
all that happened exactly

letters show up on the wall
I’m your fear, nice to meet you
the figures enjoy playing
moving in the empty, empty house

And you, you don’t know how hard
I tried to keep it from you
all the nightmares
screams and blood on the uniform
you, you don’t understand how much
I’m not who I was
images appear from that night
tears, and pain of warriors

The blood on the uniform is particularly disturbing. Amedi is too young to have served in the Second Lebanon War. He may have took part in Operation Cast Lead, for all I know – but that one wasn’t too bloody, for Israelis at least. He may have written the song about someone else, too. Who knows, I might be looking into it a bit too much.

But I’m used to war songs coming out when there’s… ummm…. war. So, are Israelis in love with this young warrior and his war song for a reason? Or is it just a simply good song that people like to hum?

Just a thought.

Since the song came out, I’ve seen two parodies of it on Youtube. The first takes a shot at the “lochamim” glorification. This guy sings about the Pain of Jobniks (those guys in the offices), and tell his girlfriend how she doesn’t know that he stole chocolate milk, and about all those terrible weekends he spent at home.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIgwydqumcs&feature=related[/youtube]

But the following is great. It’s “the Pain of Terrorists”. These guys sing to Amedi:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi3soTEaObM&feature=related[/youtube]

“Idan, you don’t know how much
I tried to explain to you
There’s no A Star is Born in Gaza
All I wanted to do was sing a bit

Idan, now you’ll understand
why you only took second place
Because, we can’t send SMS’s in Gaza
Tears, the pain of terrorists”

Ami Kaufman

Ami Kaufman was chief night editor for Haaretz, for the prominent Israeli financial daily Calcalist, and correspondent on Israeli affairs for 93.6 RAM FM, a joint Palestinian-Israel radio station. His interest in food and cooking led to culinary studies at the "Israeli CIA" (Tadmor, Herzliya) and a brief stint in the restaurant business. Born in Tel Aviv, Ami lives in Bat Yam with his wife and two daughters. In his spare time he blogs at Half & Half.

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