Saturday, November 3, 2007

A Blast From the Past

Driving back home yesterday after one of the longest days ever, a line jumped into my head ... after lots of mental effort I finally remembered ... It's from Alanis' 'All I Really Want' !!!! LOONG TIME whew
this song holds a significant value in my heart. I can say it's the first decent track that ever attracted me. In order to understand that a bit more, you need to go a little through my musical history.
I grew up in a very typical Egyptian family, (my dad's not that typical but he wasn't there much before my Mom died, at least not that i remember). So, as any Egyptian family all the music I listened to as a kid was 3afaaf Raady, Latifa, and Hany Shaker, then there was a new star on the rise called Amr Diab :D ... Occasionally there would be some BeeGees playing in my Mom's car stereo but Disco music never attracted me back then.
One day, i was singing with my class in music class (i was 6), and my genius music teacher loved my voice (REAL GENIUS!!!). This love was manifested in my doing a solo performance in the Mothers' Day school celebration ... and in this marvelous celebration, i sang ... e7m ... Hany Shaker's "3ally el De7kaaya" ... e7m again!!! e7m
I also remember a day when a thief broke into our car and stole my Medhat Sale7 tapes in Alexandria ... man i was so angry ... there was no more 'ana 3ayez 3eesh fkawkab tany???!' and yes that's what i thought he was saying at that time ... and it made perfect sense to me back then!!
Then of course by the age of 9 came the amazing Michael Jackson period that every kewl ejybshan kid had to go through ... when you just play cool singing lyrics that don't make sense even in Zulu language, thinking maho he's screaming and getting hickups throughout the whole songs akeed that's his music ... eehe2 adooba aah turns out to be 'it ain't too much stuff' three years later (for reference check out Michael's track 'JAM'. (also thought to mean Marabba at the time).
Moving on ... there was this period, my dad's car broke down and a generous friend of his lent him his awesome Land Rover Discovery with a CD player, (ayyaam mal CD's kanet e7'teraa3) ... playing around with the buttons i played and then came this track with this woman sounding really insane, rebellious ... and for the first time maybe in my whole life, i could actually interpret the lyrics ... and i loved them ... i loved the music ... i loved everything ... eh el 7'ara elly ana basma3o tool 3omry da???!! and then came the following track ,,, and the one after ... and the one after ... i was hooked ... and i can say that now, 11 years later, this album is playing as i write this ... i'm never bored of it... "Jagged Little Pill" ~ Alanis Morissette and it's first track "All I Really Want"
and this was my intro to real music ... ofcourse i had my usual metallica periods as well, pink floyd shortly after, and now i'm where i am ... i don't care about the genre as long as there is some good music that people put effort in (more effort than a few mouse clicks on a pc) ... although i like some electronic stuff but those have to be seriously wicked!!!

So here's to you all ... and here's to music ... and here's to Alanis ... and the song of today is
Alanis Morissette ~ All I Really Want

4 comments:

Ran said...

u didn't have backstreet boys' period... SHAME ON YOU!! lol :D

haijekov said...

i must've forgotten that one :)
it overlapped shwayya ma3 Michael Jackson :)

Deeeeeee said...

Reading this post really made me smile... :)
I can't imagine u singing "3alli elde7kaya" or listening to Medhat Saleh at all! You made me think about my personal musical taste progression, and I think the first good non-Arabic music I ever listened to were a few tracks for The Cranberries!

haijekov said...

Medhat da kan 7abeeby ... despite my always making up lyrics of my own 3ashan kan kalaamo mga3lass 3alayya bass kan '7etta men alby keda hoh ;)'

lool