"In every performance I understand the song better," says Eran Tzur about "Errol", the first song in the project "And here you stay" - innovations for Meir Ariel • Listen

• Eran Tzur, "And Here You Stay" Project

  Photo: 

  Sharon Deri, Coco

Eran Tzur did not grow up in the kibbutz, but grew up in those years describing the kibbutz in Meir Ariel's song, "Errol".

"On the one hand, he is described as poetic and utterly lost, the slender artist, and on the other he is beautifully arouses love and empathy. Lying under a grapefruit or eucalyptus tree. But mostly it's the language that speaks to me, along with Meir Ariel's ability to put a complete and complex story within a song, and also meet the musical criteria of rock and pop, "Tzur explains.

• "And here you stay" - innovations for Meir Ariel

"Errol" is the fourth song in Meir Ariel's first album "Holiday Songs and Fall," which was released in 1978. Eran Tzur chose to perform as part of the project "And here you stay" - innovations for Meir Ariel, in collaboration with BPM College and "Anana" this song, along with musicians Assaf Roth and Adi Rennert who were also partners in the processing, and he performs two houses, the first and last.

"Meir Ariel was a poet. When he performs the songs on the cusp of Spokane, he uses the words as soft material"

"In my adaptation, the song opens with guitar playing, a kind of prologue to the story that leads us to the collective world, to Yehuda Nun, Akiva, Ruhi and the rest of the characters, when everyone knows everything about everyone: 'And Rochik loved him, they say that Aviva too, some say, is a reasonable element to think that Akiva too' "I believe that when performing a new song, you must interpret it", he says.

Meir Ariel, who stirred up the whole world in his remarks against gay people, writes that there is a reasonable element that Akiva is in love with Arul?

"I do not know the degree of irony and cynicism that Meir poured into these words, but in those years it was not easy to be gay in the kibbutz. There is a reasonable element that kibbutzim were also gay, and perhaps Akiva conceals and reveals.

"When Meyer said the harsh things about gays ('To me, gayism and lesbianism is a digression, and if a man does it should know he is a pervert' - an interview from the late 1990s, which he apologized on several occasions), it really disturbed me. And here at Errol he shows openness And gives it space. "

What connects you to Errol and Meir Ariel?

"In every performance, I understand the song better. I imagine the summer sabbath inside the fiery tin warehouse, when Arul is inside with Judah Noon's rescue, and hears the sounds of the love act, enters the warehouse and causes Arul to flee and get into a situation in the orchard, And by the end of the song - 'At the end they found him dropping under one eucalyptus, thought it was a normal case, no need to worry, on the other hand it turned out completely wrong, two slaps, did not wake up on the way to the room either ...'

"Meir Ariel was a poet. When he performs the songs on the cusp of Spokane, he uses the words as soft material. They are the ones who create the sound, and in some of the songs for his harmonious and rounded parking. I like the complexity."

Do you like the Jewish face in his poems?

"Meir was a symbol of secularism and Israelis, but he could not write in Hebrew without the context of the Jewish text. I am very attached to it. In my poem 'Evening in Kislev', had it not been for Meir Ariel, I would not have been looking for and using phrases from the sources. And yet it penetrates into the earth's core of wisdom accumulated in Jewish sources. "

For the first time, the boy Eran Tzur became acquainted with Meir Ariel's songs with the release of his album "Holiday Songs Fall and Fall". "In the first second, I realized that this was a new, original, bold voice. I bought the record and started to follow it," he says.

In 1990, 23-year-old Eran Tzor recorded a cover version of the song "Snake's Snake," which was part of the soundtrack "Shuru". "My rendition of Snake Dispatch has been widely heard on radio and helped me to start a musical career," he recalls. "Meyer did not find it easy to use a song for the film. He was reluctant to find that stealing attention from the original performance. I met Meir when I was a music student, and I remember his eternal smile and cannabis in the morning."

What is the importance of Israeli culture?

"He is a cornerstone of Hebrew music, mainly thanks to his written texts and his troubadourism, a traveling folk singer with a guitar. He managed to reap success in his life, his songs reached their destination, and he is very present in Israeli music. "