Have you ever missed something that may never have existed? I sometimes feel like I’m living in the wrong place, maybe the wrong time. I feel like things were better once, but I can’t remember when that was.
A recently e-mailed me a music video by Arik Einstein, a noted Israeli musician whose music was popular in the sixties and seventies. He continues to make music today, and this video spans his career in a way. In it, you can see modern Tel Aviv contrasted with its black and white images from the days when Arik was a young musician. His younger, cartoon self wanders around the city, which morphs from old to new in his wake. Einstein sings about life as it was back then, but insists that he’s isn’t quite nostalgic, just enjoying his memories. In the end, he meets his younger self, an ephemeral cartoon image, monochromatic and stuck in the past along with yesterday’s Tel Aviv.
Here’s the video, along with my rough translation of the lyrics.
“Eden” Cinema, Eddie Cantor,
Something funny with Roman soldiers.
Menahem Mendel, Aleppo Pistachio [film character],
Skies strewn with a million stars.
The cabin of “the Tent,” the scent of the sea,
A lone sail blanches on the horizon.
Amiram field, the sand is so hot,
“The deer,” Emil, Eyal, and Ofer.
It isn’t quite nostalgia,
It’s just kinda nice to reminisce.
I’d rather not analyze the reasons,
It comes and goes fleetingly.
Shimshon’s club [a local football league], David Ben-Gurion,
Sprinting on Kakal Boulevard.
Shmulik solves a riddle on the radio,
And the crimson thread is always LaSalle street.
It isn’t quite nostalgia,
It’s just kinda nice to reminisce.
I’d rather not analyze the reasons,
It comes and goes fleetingly.
Marlene Dietrich, Lily, legs,
Frank Sinatra now and forever.
Marcello Mastroianni, Edison Jerusalem [old movie theater],
Burt Lancaster, everyone’s hero.
It isn’t quite nostalgia,
It’s just kinda nice to reminisce.
I’d rather not analyze the reasons,
It comes and goes fleetingly.
