Song for Yom Kippur

A year ago, I wrote about the kibbutz tradition of a special evening on Yom Kippur, where people read poems or stories, or sing songs which are very meaningful. I had some spare time recently when I started thinking about this evening: I don't have any new songs (which I have written) ready for the evening, so maybe I should try an Israeli song. One candidate which came to mind is a song called (something like) 'Instead of separating'.

I first heard this song in 1976 when I was returning to Britain from Israel; whilst waiting in the terminal, I bought a record by the Israeli trio "Chocolate, Menta, Mastik" ('mastik' is chewing gum). I discovered on this record a good song, 'Instead of separating', which bore the stylistic marks of composer Matti Caspi: there is a chord sequence of Bm7b5-BbMaj7-Esus4-E7, which is typical of him. Also, the third and fourth verses of this song started out the same as the first two verses, but then veered off into very unusual chord sequences. The same trick appears in the second verse of 'Yemei Binyamina' (which coincidentally I 'performed' for the Yom Kippur evening several years ago). Today I discovered the song on YouTube. Needless to say, my version is quite different.

When I was studying Hebrew in Arad at the beginning of 1979, one day we were given a poem to learn and possibly translate. Reading the words, I had a sense of deja vu -  I knew this poem! They were the words to 'Instead of separating'. Incidentally, although the lyric was written by a man, the words are written from a woman's point of view (the first recordings were by women). I marked all the places which needed a gender change.

For the musical arrangement, my intention was that the first two verses be quiet and relaxed, with the next two verses being somewhat harsher, in order to match the wild chord sequence. There were a couple of false starts with the sequencing but eventually I was able to arrange a first verse which is extremely light. I expanded the arrangement through the following verses, but almost every day I found myself taking out parts or delaying them. For example, there are two lines of strings in the second verse: the first eight bars has only one line, whereas the second strings line enters in the ninth bar. The arrangement was sufficiently complete yesterday for me to record vocals.

Today, circumstances conspired to give me several hours of free time, so I elected to use them to record vocals to the two songs which I have ready. A few takes of 'Instead of separating' were followed by two of 'Gemini and Leo', at which time I felt confident to nail a master take of 'Instead of separating'. Then I started mixing the song, finding the appropriate set of studio effects for the vocal; this changes from verse to verse.

I was listening to the track aloud from my mobile computer, when my wife came home and asked what all the 'tick-tick-tick' noise was, which to her ears was annoying. 'Those are the drums', I told her; I didn't mention that they were instrumental in maintaining the 12/8 pulse. "They're ruining the song; you're singing so gently and the backing track is sympathetic, but those drums ruin everything". On her advice, I removed the drums.

Now the song sounds even more naked and possibly more convincing than before, although I have to get used to it. It seems that the song can be heard here.