And I just wanted to sing

The stress at the beginning ("I took everything hard"), the frustration with the treatment of older women ("Singers can have a belly and the audience will cheer. For older artists the audience does not forgive"), the moment she thought of giving up music ("I said 'I retire'") and the reconnection With Remy: Just before age 60, Rita talks about everything.

Interview

Nir Yahav

17/03/2022

Thursday, March 17, 2022, 5:30 p.m.

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If Rita is asked to go back for one moment in her career because of which she thought of giving up and retiring, she will return to Independence Day of 1987. "I just graduated from acting school at Beit Zvi and all the theater and singing were very connected to me," she recalls in an interview with Walla!

Culture (listen to the podcast - the full interview - at the link below).

"I sang 'There Were Nights' and felt like I wanted to sing with a long dress and some black veil. I sat on the floor and made movements. The whole country of course saw. Half a country loved but half a country attacked me. Write about me,' How dare she take such a classic and sit on The floor ?! '. I made the song a bit oriental, I was new and inexperienced in terms of criticism, and the reactions were so intense and I could not contain this thing.

"I said to myself, 'I do not understand. I was not the only singer on this show. Everyone sang a song, why exactly did my show create so many angry reactions?'. I went to bed and said, 'This is it, I'm retiring.' I broke all my records. I cried and I did not leave the house for three days. Then Yaakov Gilad came to visit me, he saw me in such a situation and asked what had happened. I told him everything and told him I was tired. To him the works. He said, 'You are an artist. Say thank you for being an artist, for creating and not being a poster. Say thank you for producing an emotional response in people. You do not want to be furry. At that moment I got up and in retrospect I understand it was a sentence that affected me greatly For what I did later on. "

"All the time they were. I remember my first TV appearance on the 'Hit in the Head' show when the whole country was watching. My sister called and asked, 'Why didn't you wear heels?', And someone else asked, 'Why weren't you barefoot?'. Someone asked, 'Why? "Do you open your mouth so wide?", And then he asked, "Why did you dance at all?" Everyone who called and said something to me, managed to convince me.

Vote right here for Rita's great song parade and you might win an equal prize

The podcast with Rita - listen here for the full interview:

Rita's performance from 1987 to "There Were Nights" caused a stir

"When I started my career at the age of 24, because it started so strong and fast and powerful, I really felt a kind of pressure and commitment. I felt I had to be at my thousand percent and bring in the maximum, and I took everything really seriously."

Next week, Rita - one of the greatest, most beloved and important singers in the history of the country - will celebrate her 60th birthday, an event in honor of which Walla!

And eco99fm a special parade of her songs at Walla!

To be broadcast live on the website, app and radio.

In the parade, her greatest songs will be chosen and she will even be hosted in the studio.

"The girl in me doesn't even understand what that number is, 60. When I think of the phrase '60-year-old woman,' it sounds completely different from what I feel or experience. It has nothing to do with me."

"No, I do not think. On the contrary, it is a kind of pride. Every year brings with it a kind of depth, new wisdom and new understanding. I do not think age should be hidden."

"When I started my career at the age of 24, because it started so strong and fast and powerful, I really felt a kind of pressure and commitment. I felt I should be in my thousand percent and bring the maximum, and I took everything really seriously. After the first album there were those who said 'yes, but On the second album she's going to crash. This is the real test. This is her moment of truth in terms of her career. "For me it was very frightening. Then I released the second album which was very successful. He said, "Even you can not spoil Rita's career. What she did - she has already done and can not be spoiled anymore."

"Yes. But there was no doubt that there was happiness in actually fulfilling the dream. It was a very ancient and primitive need of mine to do what I did and fulfilled. But yes,

More on Walla!

Exciting to tears: Watch her construction Barbie performs Rita's "Feather in the Wind"

To the full article

There was happiness in actually fulfilling the dream.

Rita (Photo: Elad Malka)

"I think there is a lot more forgiveness for men's aesthetic maturation. You can see men with huge, fat bellies sitting on stage, barely able to breathe, and singing - and the audience cheering. I do not know how much the audience can forgive an adolescent woman."

Being a singer in Israel is not an easy thing.

Being a singer in Israel with a successful career of 36 years is an almost impossible task.

There are not many singers who have managed to do it like you.

How hard was it along the way?

"First of all I was lucky and it really happened, because even in the world women do not hold on for long. It ends sometime, or some take a break for many years and then return to a kind of comeback after 20-30 years. Career throughout many years without a break, and in women it does not happen much. It is probably due to several reasons and not for one particular reason. Maybe our psyche is a little more complex than men's. "And at the same time maintain a family life and raise my daughters."

"I can talk to you about that a lot. I think there is a lot more forgiveness for men's aesthetic maturation. You can see men with huge, fat bellies sitting on stage, barely able to breathe, and singing - and the audience cheering. I do not know how much the audience can forgive a woman "Adolescence. Maybe it's also part of the matter that women do not survive like men. Look even at Hollywood - amazing actresses who do not last for years."

More on Walla!

You have never heard of such a thing: Idan Amadi performs Rita's "Until You Leave"

To the full article

Rita in an interview with Nir Yahav (Photo: Elad Malka)

"The desire to be a star is very dangerous because it's from the outside to the inside, it's twisted. I understand that the world has changed, that things have changed and that people see famous people on Instagram or TV and then you say, 'I want to shine like this.'

What was the moment in your childhood that you realized you wanted to be a singer?

"I was four. We were at some party, maybe an engagement party of someone from the family, and they put me on a chair and gave me a microphone. There was a man there who played the violin and they let me sing. I remember that moment as one of the clearest and clearest things in my life. Even though I was very young I felt Suddenly I'm coming home. Like a Hungarian cube working out, all of a sudden everything was very tidy for me, I felt like I was going back to some ancient house of my own. "They got along. I did not have to ask anything, everything was very clear and obvious. Maybe then I stopped crying. There was some new path to my feelings."

"We went home and I told my parents 'I'm going to be a singer.' They did not take it seriously, I was four years old, but I took it seriously. Jazz and then sound development. I was very intent. The parents did not stop me, I do not know if they understood what I wanted so much. My mother did hear music all the time and she also has a stunning voice, but she did not really understand what I want".

"When I realized my need to sing, I did not know what it was to be famous. I remember the first year they asked me to be a guest singer at a festival or festival. I was supposed to walk around and say 'I want to be a star too.' Every time I said the sentence in rehearsals I felt uncomfortable. I invited screenwriter Ehud Manor to my house, brought him Persian food my mother cooked, and told him, 'I can not say this sentence.' He asked why, I told him 'what is it to be a star, I just want to sing, not be a star' I was standing in front of the mirror, holding my mother's brush, and I just wanted to sing. So he said, 'I'm going to write this song.'

"The desire to be a star is very dangerous because it's from the outside to the inside, it's twisted. I understand that the world has changed, that things have changed and that people see famous people on Instagram or TV and then you say, 'I want to shine like this.' Work, so much heartbreak, mental, emotional crises. So many times I have told my daughters, 'You can not just see the successes and the lights on stage. There is a lot of daily work, hard, tedious, Sisyphean'. So many times There were moments when I said, 'What, is it worth all this fragility?'. People need to know that, I do not know if when you look at it from the outside you see it.

"Silk, for example, was born into the fact that her mother had already performed on the biggest stages in the country and in the world. She traveled with me in the world, saw everything. She has not seen all the work before and she may have thought that if you want to be a singer - you just become a singer. It should have been taught that there is a very difficult way in this matter. "

A karmic encounter.

Rita and Rami (Photo: Niv Aharonson)

"Remy and I were separated for 14 years. If you had asked me a few years ago if we would perform together again I would have said no. I also did not feel the need and also thought that if we parted then parted. '. We met to test feasibility and it was from

What would your career have looked like if you had not met Rami Kleinstein?

"Listen, it's really a matter of revolving doors. I'm sure I was into music. Sometimes there are connections that are completely karma. This musical karma of meeting Remy and being the guru, teacher, producer, composer, my arranger - I think if I were a composer, sure. "I was like that I was composing for myself. This composition was very fateful and I was lucky and I was blessed with someone so talented, so genius, who was by my side and knew me so well, and knew my vocal range, my abilities, to compose these immortal songs for me.

" Every time he would come to performances and see the thousands of people singing the songs, I would ask him, 'How do you feel you hear what you have created?

How should a person who creates out of nothing feel?

It must be a crazy feeling. '

I feel it in the texts I have written, for example in 'Waiting', that I see that the text has become a kind of prayer or anthem. "

"I was driving in Tel Aviv and when I stopped at traffic lights I looked at people around. I saw something gloomy, as if everyone was engrossed in the less good thoughts of life. I just wanted to open the window and shout 'hello, it's okay, everything will be okay,' but I could not do it. So I took out a notebook and a pen and wrote. Many times the head does not participate in the process but the hand writes. outside".

"It's very exciting. We were separated for 14 years. If you had asked me a few years ago if we would perform together again I would have said no. I also did not feel the need and also thought that if we parted then parted. About it. 'We met to test the feasibility and it was surprising how nothing can hide karmic connections. Maybe quite the opposite. Because it is real and touching and gets depth. "

"These were really difficult years. The parting from Helicon was very difficult and then came the parting from Remy. Alongside all this was the insane success of the album 'Hints' and the performances. I tried to convey the process I went through in performances, and people who were then in performances said they went through the process This one - from a sense of mourning to a sense of celebration, like a kind of soul-searching. I too went through this process at every show again. But it was not easy. Singing 'Sarah in the Streets' takes on a different meaning after a farewell, or "Lonely. After all, songs are not just yours. Once it comes out, everyone takes this song and interprets it differently."

From a sense of mourning to a sense of celebration.

Rita (Photo: Elad Malka)

"I most enjoy sitting hugging with my girls and watching series. I like to fall asleep with 'friends' because it makes me happy, the world looks a little less nightmarish and more beautiful and optimistic after watching their episode."

Maybe tell about the everyday Rita?

What do you like to eat for example?

"My favorite food is the rice my mom makes. It's a whole art. There's rice with Paul, and there are really a lot of varieties. I reach for it, put all my fingers in it and eat."

"I make, and I even cook well, but not the complicated Persian dishes. Gundi I can make. But a few years ago I decided I put into my body only healthy food. I drink in the morning smoothies with fruits, vegetables, nuts, tahini. I do not like "To eat meat, and if I could I would not eat meat at all, because I feel like I am eating something that was alive before it got into my mouth. In any case, I am not a big eater. I eat a little and that satisfies me."

“I love being UFOs in front of the TV, and watching series and movies, I most enjoy sitting hugging with my girls and watching series.

little less nightmarish and more beautiful and optimistic after watching their

episode

After all, I studied acting at Beit Zvi for three years and hardly played in television or film.

In the first season I would say to creator Gal Zeid about my character, ‘This is an exaggeration.

Do you really want me to make such a character ?! '

- And he said 'yes'.

I had a very hard time with what he demanded of me.

This character is very extreme, unexpected, suddenly screaming, suddenly calming down.

Really borderline.

I was afraid that people would think I did not know how to play and that this was my type of game.

The first reviews were really like that.

The character has not yet been absorbed.

In the second season, I already enjoyed it more. "

"I wish I had the experience I have now before the Eurovision. I got there so scared, the musicians faked, I arrived without playback, the drummer did not play the rhythm and we hysterically flew Alon Hillel to replace him. I was so scared I faked, that I did not enjoy this experience at all."

"No. Why put me in a kind of competition? I see for example 'Dancing with the Stars' and I see there esteemed artists who really take it hard and get stressed. Competitions have never done me any good."

"If I could get off stage and be completely anonymous, then I would be happy. I mean, keep performing and singing to people which is my favorite thing in the world, but then go down and be anonymous. I understand that's impossible."

Are there any of your songs that you think were not appreciated enough?

"There is a song that I am very much in love with called 'Clear Water,' which I wrote in my recovery process after the great rift in the face of the Helicon and the divorce. "I also have 'I came to you' from the album 'Transparent Miracles'. Every song for me is a world and its fullness."

"No, there's no way. There's not a single song I'm tired of singing. Every time I go up excited and scared to sing a song at a show. In my life."

"I was very happy. I got great responses about it. There were some production companies that had already offered me to produce a series out of it."

"At the moment it does not seem to me. It was not easy to write. I wrote the book for six years. In Corona I had some good months that I could really finish it."

"If I could get off the stage and be completely anonymous, then I would be happy. I mean, keep performing and singing to people which is my favorite thing in the world, but then go down and be anonymous. I understand that's impossible. Listen, it's not easy being a person who recognizes him at all. Place. Even the cell phone and selfie era is not simple. It took me a while to get used to the fact that the phones are constantly pointing at me at shows. At first I was sorry I thought people do not experience the moment, but life changes, there is nothing to do. "Like my daughters picking up the cell phone and taking pictures. I'm in the moment."

"Much".

"No, it's exciting over and over again, it's really exciting. I say it from the most simple and real place."

"Full. I do not know if I can share and tell about them all, but there are. There were for example songs, or things I did not insist on, or things that were not important and I thought they were important and important things I thought they were not. There were also things I did not supervise because I was busy In something else. "

There is no song I am tired of singing.

Rita (Photo: Orit Pnini)

"Once upon a time there was a bereaved mother whose son was killed in the army, who asked me to sing 'Until You Leave' when they bury him, because it was his favorite song and it was also a farewell. I told her I'm not sure I would last. I remember singing and the mother was the one holding me I was shaking and singing.

You have worked with the great lyricists and also with one, the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid who wrote you "The Sailor's Favorite Song" and "Cry".

Tell us a little about the encounter with Lapid.

"First of all, Yair Lapid was a friend of Rami. I remember one day Rami came back from the sea and said 'I wrote a melody for you' which was really a sea melody. Then he offered to give the melody to Yair. Lapid had just finished reading Z 'Sea of ​​Death'. "Verz Amado and that was what Bull wore to him."

"We have to take into account that I come from another language, from Persian culture. My father was a great scholar and admired all the great Persian poets. He recited Persian poetry for us. I come from a high language culture, even when I was a girl and a girl - the written word was very important. I connected to songs whose lyrics were trivial.When I chose songs, I chose because the lyrics moved me.

"In the joint show with Remy I leave the stage and Remy sings alone 'Until You Leave' which I wrote and he composed. I wrote the song in some short farewell we had during the army. Seeing aside Remy singing the song, thinking about the situation I originally wrote it - I really refrain from crying.

"There was once a bereaved mother whose son was killed in the army, who asked me to sing" Until You Leave "when he was buried, because it was his favorite song and it was also a farewell mountain.

I told her I was not sure I would last.

I remember singing and the mother was the one who held me.

I trembled and sang at the moment of burial.

And you think where this text has come from.

These are truly unforgettable moments.

Some mothers and daughters send shared tattoos from words from 'Take You'.

The most exciting thing is to know where the words I wrote end up. "You

"It was perhaps the most exciting show I have ever had in my life. The UN secretary general told me, 'What you do, no politician can do, because there is cynicism towards politicians and they come with agendas. You were born in Iran, you are a Jew, Israeli and you show that all this thing connects together. "He also said," Even if Madonna wants to connect Persia to Israel - she can not because she did not come from here or there. Never stop. "I looked at him and he was not cynical. I think That is one of the most exciting things I have been told as an artist. "

"I really like Hanan Ben-Ari, his lyrics. I'm excited about them. Meshi and Noam are also excited about them. They have so much meaning. I love a lot of singers. Yuval Dayan, Miri Mesika, Marina Maximilian."

"She's stunning. I love that she's with her feet on the ground, she's a very sane girl, beautiful to die for. Her music is great. Of course I can not sing that music. I think there is room for all the music in the world."

"I do not want to talk about Noa, but there is no doubt that today there are songs whose lyrics are not so level. I believe that songs and art should lift us up as human beings and not take them down."

"I learn something new every day. My daughter teaches me that while I'm angry and offended - I have to talk. Because when I'm angry and offended I shut up and say nothing. It's a kind of disability. She comes and tells me 'we're talking now!' I know how to fight, I do not know how to confront, I'm very sorry and I wish I would learn it. Every day I learn something new. I do not take life seriously, because it passes quickly. One thing is more important to me than anything: compassion. Always think on the side "Maybe he also comes with problems and complications and you always have to get over the damaged place and say to yourself, 'It's not against me, it's hard on the other side as well."

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