Jun

6

Sweet Music

June 6, 2007 |

Occasionally, especially when I’m sick and have nothing else to do, I surf YouTube for things about Israel. Today I stumbled on this video. I heard this rendition of the song many years ago when I watched a (pretty dumb) movie called Finding Forrester. I think it played in the end credits. Anyway, when I found it on YouTube, I was very happy and thought that I would share it with you. The singer is the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, the great Hawaiin musician. He died in 1997.

Music is a powerful medium. Often I am moved by a song or a melody in a way that few other things can move me. Another beautiful song that moves me to tears is this rendition of “Hallelujah” sung by Jeff Buckley, who, strangely enough, also died in 1997.

I don’t know why these songs affect me the way that they do, but every time I hear them I think of the beauty and pain of life and the sad comedy of our existence.

I was once in NYC in line at a pizza place and I was talking with a friend about how it seemed that for every thought or emotion you could feel someone somewhere had written a song about it. There was a Chassid behind me and he had overheard the conversation. “Do you know why that is?” he said. “It’s because the Lord of the Universe created the world from 13 melodies. Everything that exists derives from those melodies.” I don’t know if it is true, but if He did, then these two songs are definitely part of the Divine score.

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