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Paul Kunigis & Jeszcze Raz |
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Crossing Boundaries of Language, Culture, and Style
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Elsewhere on the Web
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• Jeszcze Raz (official site from Les Disques Audiogram)
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Inside World Music: What does Jeszcze Raz mean?
Paul Kunigis: It means "once more." It's basically a sentence that the
Polish people use in their Happy Birthday song, but instead of singing
"Happy birthday, happy birthday," we sing "once more, once more;
a hundred years, a hundred years; once more, once more," lots of health
and stuff like that.
Inside World Music: On Balagane there are several songs about the
Middle East and politics, but also about life in general and more light-hearted
themes. What were your goals for the album Balagane, and what sorts of messages
did you want to communicate?
Paul Kunigis: When I first started I really didn't have any goal in
particular; I don't believe I'm a preacher.
I think what I wanted to demonstrate really is that language should not be a
barrier, number one, not just in terms of message we want to convey to somebody.
On the other hand, and that's a paradox I suppose, it's so people know that there are
two language in that region - Arab and Hebrew - and that most Israelis speak Arab and
most Arabs speak Hebrew, because I had the feeling that some people just thought
that it was really two separate worlds, but it's not. In terms of politics - I didn't
give an opinion; I just gave an observation. I didn't want to preach; I didn't
want to give anybody any moral lessons or anything like that. Actually, my complaint
is more with G-d than with the people, since we all believe in the same G-d then it
seems to me that recently He's been deaf.
Inside World Music: It's very interesting that you mention that, because in
the song "Balagane" itself you're asking G-d the question, "why is this happening?"
and I believe G-d is also addressed in a few other songs as well . . .
Paul Kunigis: That was intentional - I didn't want people to think that I'm
taking either one side or the other side, or whatever - I'm not taking any sides;
I think everybody has their reasons. But on the other hand, where is G-d? Since
they're all fighting in the name of G-d. I don't know, if somebody was fighting
in my name, if I had a woman fighting for me, I think I would acknowledge it at
least.
The other thing Balagane is, is the passage of life. We all go through hell;
we all go through a mess in our life occasionally and the light-hearted stories
is to just realize that evening the darkest moments there is a ray of hope or a
light that forces us as human beings to go on.
Next page > Paul Kunigis & Jeszcze Raz: Part Three >
