Thread: ouloulou

i'm looking for the translation of ouloulou, the abdel halim hafiz song and my googling skills seem to fail me today (and yesterday and last time i used this song)

any help???

Here you go: Arabic Music: English Translation of Lyrics for Ooloolo by Abdel Halim Hafez

hehe, it's my spelling skills that didnt lead me to shira. shouldaknown. thanks!!!

well, i got the translation know, but it doesnt really ehlp me to understand what the deepest emotion in it is. well, yes, madly in love. but how desperate is it?

Can't help you there. :-)

I'd go by the music which should tell you if it's desperate or a five minutes passion :-)

well, to me the music (the version i'm using) sounds happy but "'searching", if that makes sense. i'm using the version from aziza raks.

Listen to his Original to get the sound feeling.

yeah, i think there the "longing" part is stronger.

and this is another example of song being sung in the "male" version, but meaning a girl, right?

You're right that the "him" referred to in the lyrics is actually referring to the woman that he loves.

Here's some information about the scene in the movie in which this song is sung...

In Sharia el Hob, the movie where this song appeared, the context is that Hafez' character has just returned home to baladi neighborhood where he grew up after graduating from a music conservatory. There's a huge party to welcome him home, with the entire neighborhood coming out for it. And of course, because it's a big party, he bursts into song, and everybody is bouncy and happy.

Nagwa Fouad dances around him, wearing a dress in the style that baladi women would have been wearing in Cairo back in 1959 (NOT a dance costume), so her performance is that of joyous party fun, NOT raqs sharqi. This dress is an example of the actual real-life fashion upon which melaya leff costuming was based. The context is NOT suggesting that she's the woman he's singing about, she's just a neighborhood girl having fun at the party. Her mood is happy and joyous.

Arabs who have seen this movie will associate the song with a party mood.


(And now that I have talked about how a famous song fits into a movie scene, let me put in a shameless plug for the fact that I'll be doing my "Dance in Egyptian Cinema" lecture at the Northern Lights Bellydance Festival in October....)

thanks you!!!! so "happy" works for the choreo mood, great cause that's what i have more or less.

i've always wondered about the style, as the version i have, the beginning/refrain is pretty "sharqi" to me, but the middle bit feels more like baladi to me. i'm definitely going to tweek the choreo a little that way.