Thread: linda linda by haim

does anybody know this song and his background? google search tells me it's originally farid el atrach, and sometimes it comes up saying that haim is morrocan rai singer, but then i also found an israeli haim on wikipedia who also sings this song? or it's the same guy?

i thought it was an innocent love song, but through JSTOR i found an article i cant open that seems to suggest its political, or can be interpreted that way.
does anybody know anything more about either singer or song?

artemisia

Originally Posted by artemisia_danst

does anybody know this song and his background? google search tells me it's originally farid el atrach, and sometimes it comes up saying that haim is morrocan rai singer, but then i also found an israeli haim on wikipedia who also sings this song? or it's the same guy?

i thought it was an innocent love song, but through JSTOR i found an article i cant open that seems to suggest its political, or can be interpreted that way.
does anybody know anything more about either singer or song?

artemisia

Linda Linda was popular in the 80's in the DC area. The words are fluff -- "you're my life" etc. I would be really surprised if there's any political content. It's kind of a counteraprt to Ya Moustafa -- they were both played a lot.

hey,

i thought the words were fluff too, they sound like it... but:

i cant open the article as at my new job i dont have JSTOR acces, but this is what it says (yeah for google cached)

"With "Linda, Linda," Haim Moshe had infiltrated the symbolic center of Israel's ideological heartland "

and the article is

Israeli Mediterranean Music: Straddling Disputed Territories
Amy Horowitz
The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 112, No. 445, Theorizing the Hybrid (Summer, 1999), pp. 450-463

It was played endlessly in the 80's but is actually much older than that. Try 1952!

5. Haim – Hibina / Linda Linda / Hamouda

Better known in recent times as a live favourite of raï rocker Rachid Taha, this song originally featured in ‘Lahn al Khouloud’, a 1952 film by Henry Barakat, and was written by Farid El Atrache. This far poppier rendition is by new Moroccan Raï sensation Haim.

(The movie is also famous for the song Gamil Gamal.)

http://www.belly-dance.org/faten-hamama.html

Originally Posted by artemisia_danst

hey,

"With "Linda, Linda," Haim Moshe had infiltrated the symbolic center of Israel's ideological heartland "

You know academics though, that could just be postmodern speak for "the song by an Arab gets played on Israeli radio a lot." I'll give you a followup sentence: "The Israeli predilection for the song is an ultimate expression of human desire for liminality, exploring the common country of love where the words of the feared Arab come not as a threat but as a message from a lover, domesticating the Other even as the Other uses the desire for liminality to stake his own claim as a figure of remote adulation in a locus where his physical manifestation is denied entry."

God, I can't believe I used to write this stuff seriously...

whahaaa, where's zumarrad, she has to read this too

i still have to read that crap daily too and really try not to write it. the things we do to survive academia

Originally Posted by badriya_al_ahmar

You know academics though, that could just be postmodern speak for "the song by an Arab gets played on Israeli radio a lot." I'll give you a followup sentence: "The Israeli predilection for the song is an ultimate expression of human desire for liminality, exploring the common country of love where the words of the feared Arab come not as a threat but as a message from a lover, domesticating the Other even as the Other uses the desire for liminality to stake his own claim as a figure of remote adulation in a locus where his physical manifestation is denied entry."

God, I can't believe I used to write this stuff seriously...

Is there a CD with Linda, Linda on it by Rachid Taha?

I was told by someone Armenian that so much of Arabic music is veiled, just like the rest of their society. They can't say what they really mean, so "I'm pining for my lost love" might in fact mean "I wish life around here was the way it used to be".