Achinoam Nini (Noa) - Legal Tender-ness (Hebrew version with English subtitles)
Soon after the beginning of the Corona Virus crisis, David Grossman published an article in the weekend supplement of “Haaretz”.
I read the article with bated breath. It touched the deepest places in my soul and evoked strong and conflicting emotions. I was haunted by it.
After some time, I got the idea of trying to turn the article into a song.
The result is before you.
It is all homemade. I wrote the lyrics, using quotes from the article, and the music, on my old upright Steinway. The recording and video are all modestly homemade, assisted by good friends.
We have added English subtitles to the video, a direct translation I did of the text. I hope to record an English version, or rather, adaptation, soon. I’ll keep you posted on that. (translating Grossman’s beautiful words into rhyme was a challenge I enjoyed greatly).
Huge thanks to David Grossman, who agreed to the idea, and was an enthusiastic, exacting and passionate collaborator. What an honor to work with him. Warmest thanks to Gil Dor for tweaking and recording the song, to Guy Joffe for mixing it, and to Eli Katz, Maya Smira and Shali Baharon for helping me with the video.
Let me know your thoughts…
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Legal Tender-Ness
(direct translation)
Did you read what he wrote? He asked me quietly
Yes: that we’re all one contagious human tissue….
And what did you think?
Truthfully? Pretty scary...
But what he writes, I read also with my heart….
There will be those who refuse to return to their former lives
To work-places that oppressed and strangled them, for years.
They’ll come out of closets, come out of God, leave their partners…
Decide to bring, our not to bring, a child into the world…
And possibly, delightful signs of innocence will be revealed in them...
And tenderness, maybe tenderness, all of a sudden,
And tenderness, all of a sudden,
May become, legal tender.
The truth is, we talk about it a lot, you and I.
How the children are growing, and we keep running, and soon, this house will be empty…
And our beloved parents, who won’t be here forever...
It’s hard to think, and even harder to say …
There will be those who for the first time, question choices they made,
compromises, missed opportunities, the life they never dared to live...
They will doubt their surrender to fear…
And whether war truly is heaven’s decree?
And possibly, delightful signs of innocence will be revealed in them...
And tenderness, maybe tenderness, all of a sudden,
And tenderness, all of a sudden,
May become, legal tender.
There will be those who ask, how in a world as rich as ours,
The gaps between one man and another remain so immense?
And how is it that not every baby is given a fair chance?
And nature strains under the yolk of consumerism?
All of these questions, better to ask today
In tenderness, maybe in tenderness, all of a sudden,
And delightful signs of innocence may be revealed in us...
And tenderness, maybe tenderness, all of a sudden,
And tenderness, all of a sudden,
May become, legal tender.
Tender,
What a word
Tender...
Tend to her
Lend her..
A second chance…
A new way….
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Credits:
"Legal Tender-ness"
Lyrics, Music, Arrangement and Performance: Achinoam Nini (Noa)
With quotes from an article by David Grossman
published in Haaretz on March 20, 2020
Produced and Recorded: Gil Dor
Mix: Guy Yaffe
Video:
Photographed and Directed by Achinoam Nini (Noa) and Eli Katz
Edited: Maya Smira
Additional editing: Shali Boharon
