Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Setting Yehuda Amichai to Music

Crossposted from Haaretz

Image by Daniel Tchetchik

Israel Bright is an excellent composer of music for songs based on poetry, as everyone who has listened to his wonderful 2004 recording, “Otsar Samui” (“Hidden Treasure”), will know. But despite the preceding statement, and despite the fact that Bright took obvious and joyous liberties with the earlier recording (a poem by Zelda to trance music? It turns out that this works great), it is still surprising to see what he has now done with Yehuda Amichai’s “The Place Where we are Right,” which closes the new album, “Dragot Likhluah veh Nikayon.”

In two words — Grace Jones. Yes, yes, you heard right. Those whose musical world took shape in the 1980s won’t be able to stop themselves from thinking of the androgynous pop singer from outer space and, to be more precise, her 1981 hit “I’ve Seen That Face Before,” when they hear the opening instrumentals of “From This Place” (as Bright calls his version). It dances to that same dark, slightly thrusting beat, half-tango and half-reggae: A rhythm that does not obey the starched rules about how to write music for songs based on poetry.

Read more at Haaretz.com

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.