Introducing Tova Gertner

[Dan Littauer <CSDAN1%WEIZMANN.BITNET@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>]

Greetings,

I'm new to this Digest,before I start joining the conversation about
singers that you all know,I'd like to introduce a singer who is
excellent, her name is TOVA GERTNER.  Tova is an Israeli singer, who
sings in Hebrew, that might create a problem understanding the lyrics
for any of you that would like to listen to her.  Her lyrics are
excellent,short accurate and intelligent with a good sense of humor.
The music that she writes is very hard to define, I would say it is
something between ROCK-POP but certainly her music isnt a POP music.
She is new, only 1 album till now, all of it she wrote-composed.  Back
to the music, it is full with background vocals and effects, the music
itself is astonishing in the sense that it passes you the feeling
which is exactly painted by the lyrics.  The music, sounds somewhat
sad, and that is the message that is past, Life is hard.  The name of
the album is KAT-TOM which means 'Edge of a Gun - Innocence', and so
is the music, Hard,very strong but it does have some innocence,
nostalgic, it is very autobiographical.

Most of the lyrics deal with every day life- psychology, it does not
deal in any way with politics (Thanks god), or too much of social
criticism (Though you can see that something of that is there).
Another thing about her, the lyrics and the music are appealing,
sometimes artists do thier music a bit far off, not in every day
language, I would even go further saying it is sometimes a sort of a
condescending look on us, the listeners.  Nothing of that sort, Tova
is very simple in the sense of her message but not at all at the
complexity of her lyrics, which are written in an every day language,
that gives the innocence and the appealing of her masterpiece.  I
decided to translate one song of her's called; 'A Trap'

      'A TRAP'
This is the trap of the century/
I am deep inside a box/
alone alone/
no one leaves no one enters/
I am inside without anyone/
alone alone/
I wanted to say/ everything's the same/
Its not worth the effort/ I wanted to say/
I found out too late/ Its not worth the effort/
Who knows how it arrived/I am suddenly so weak/
alone alone/
All the time just with myself/
Everything's so inside of me/
alone alone/
I wanted to say/ it isnt a daily matter/
my internal power has gone/
I wanted to say/ it didnt start yesterday/
its something really deep inside/
Why did I put out my fire?/
Why did I put out my fire?/
I wanted to say/ that I dont have muscles anymore/
my internal power has gone/
I wanted to say/ everything's the same/
its not worth the effort/
Why did I put out my fire?/
Why did I put out my fire?/
This is the trap of the century/
I am deep inside a box/
alone alone/
All the time just with myself/
Everything's so inside of me/
alone alone/
I wanted to say/ maybe everything had passed away/
what could happen?/
I wanted to say/ everything really passed away/
what could happen?/
Why did I put out my fire?/
Why did I put out my fire?/
Why?

The music stops suddenly at 'why?'  While there is no indication for
this, no tunes who leed to an end, when I first heard it I thought
something was wrong with my walkman, :-) really, the stop was so
sudden, but then I paid more attention to the song and the lyric and I
liked the idea very much, since it really lead to ask the question
'why?'.

I guess the song lost its rhymes, but still its very good, though it
losses some of its beauty when it is not read with its rhymes, but of
course I gather you wouldnt want the text in hebrew :-)

The music makes the song sound very pessimistic and from a first look
at it, it does seem so.  But then, maybe there is beauty in being
alone?  just with yourself-close to the real you?  and if I put out my
fire( my hope) I can surely put it back on.  You can see the Innocence
here again, as a childish thing, but a powerful one. I am sure I can
discuss many other things and aspects about this song but its time to
finish.

If any1 is intrested, send me mail or just add the questions/
comments on the Digest and Ill be more than happy to answer them.


PS: BTW has any1 heard about a singer called Drita Cotagi?

 Shalom Ve Lehitraot (goodbye)
                       Shana Tova-Happy New Year .

        Dan Littauer.
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