"The Light at the Edge" is a song that Poliker wrote for Arik Einstein back in the 1990s • His new performance is material for Israeli classics • Listen
Almost mystical execution.
Poliker
Photo:
Coco
Had "The Light at the Edge", Yehuda Poliker's new single, come out in other years - it would surely have become an Israeli classic.
A combination of the exact lyrics he wrote together with Yaakov Gilad and a typical polycarp melody - would have made it a song that remained for a long time.
One that radio loves to play even decades after it came out.
A song for the Pantheon.
But the last few decades, and sorry for the old saying, do not produce canonical songs as they once did.
Certainly not of the same magnitude and importance.
The funny thing about the whole story is that "The Light at the Edge" was actually written at other times.
Poliker and Gilad wrote it for Arik Einstein, and he appeared on his sixth joint album with Shem Tov Levy, "Where the Butterflies Flourished," from 1997.
He did not become an iconic remnant, not even too well known in terms of Israeli culture, and not necessarily because of his quality.
Einstein's heyday was already behind him, and his songs received less attention.
It is a pity that some of the most beautiful stones in Einstein's work lie in his later years.
One of them, "It's Not Exactly Longing," he performs to Poliker's tune.
The songs on the album "Where the Butterflies Flourished" dealt with the shock and uncertainty of the State of Israel's post-Rabin assassination.
Lines like "Life, my child, it's a serious story / Sometimes I die of fear of my own shadow" betray the harsh atmosphere that prevailed here.
Maybe it's the fear of the plague, maybe it's just Poliker's desire to play songs he chose not to sing himself in real time, but two and a half decades later, the veteran musician is now releasing the album "Songs I Composed to Others" and it's not hard to guess what his concept is.
In "The Light at the Edge" 2021, Poliker retains the western elements of the original song, but adds a haunted feel to it.
Not least thanks to the witch singing of Tom Meira Armoni and the production of Tamir Muscat.
The result, like the light seen at the end of a tunnel or perhaps at the end of a life, is almost mystical.
