Numbers

Ok ok, I give up. There's no way I can do any kind of justice to the topic of shirim ivri'im with a daily installment for three weeks. Three years, mit a-kvetch. So I suppose I'll continue longer.

One of the essential parts of the canonical shirim is that they've withstood the test of time and are still around. This means we can't say with certainty which of today's songs will survive to join the canon. Still, there's lots of creativity going on. So, when Achikam came home this afternoon from his military unit, I told him about this little project, and asked his advice on the contemporary scene. He whipped out his iPod, connected it to some speakers, and started a concert; I opened a dozen windows of You Tube to watch their video versions. Some of them were less convincing, others more so. Here's one.

Hadag Nachash is a popular band. Their moniker means "The Fish Snake", which means it doesn't mean anything. This particular song, from 2001 apparently, is about numbers and what they mean to contemporary Israelis; it also has the advantage of bilingual subtitles, so one link gives all the needed information: