art for all
Play it Again, Sam! Sam Abudarham’s Songs of Songs
words | Elena Scialtiel
Years before Ziggy Marley put it into reggae for his 2003 album Dragonfly, a Gibraltarian was already singing about Shalom Salaam. Different lyrics and very different melody of course, but the message is the same: the only way forward in the Middle East is peace between the cousins who ‘descend from Abraham’. On the notes of a tune that would befit the cartoon biopic The Prince of Egypt, Professor Doctor Samuel Abudarham invokes biblical verses like ‘the swords be beaten into ploughs to work the arid
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land’ and for ‘the little children lead, adults following behind’. The song was written about 20 years ago for the Leeds International Jerusalem Song Contest, which invited original music and lyrics on a theme related to Jerusalem, the Holy City, but its lyrics are still current as tomorrow’s headlines, that’s why Sam recently decided to post it on YouTube for everyone to hear his message of
peace — and hear him out. At the age of 70 (“And this is where you tell me ‘you don’t look like it’!” he jokes), Sam would like to professionally record his 100+ musical compositions using exciting arrangements (“mine are very basic,” he admits) and with a fresh voice, as his own is not what it used to be. That’s why he is calling out for musicians and sponsors to set his
project on the road, as a legacy to the Jewish and wider community, because music is his best talent. “I have published books about bilingualism, hypnosis and learning disabilities in my career. I have written tens of articles for learned journals, but composing music and lyrics is my forte and my sanctuary,” says Sam, former editor of the quarterly glossy magazine Kesher, circulated within the local Jewish Community. “Since a young age, I had a good ear for music, so I never disciplined myself to learn how to read and write scores when learning to play the piano. Now I play the keyboard, guitar and mouth organ, mainly by ear. In my teenage years, I was a founder member of The Melody Makers, one of the first boy bands in Gibraltar”. He considers his abilities as a very special and unique gift from above. “All of a sudden, I may hear the music in my head; a bit like Mozart told Austria’s Emperor Joseph II and his court composer Salieri when challenged to produce his musical scores ... It feels like it is coming from the stratosphere and it is suddenly revealed to me anywhere, on the bus, in the shower ...” Poetry surely is his strength, as he seeks to convey poignant messages with his lyrics and often employs ‘cryptic phrases’, like ‘the writing in your walls’ mentioned in City of Peace (Ha’ir Shalom), the song that scooped second prize at the 1991 LIJSC. The verse quoted here refers to the prayer notes slotted in the cracks between the stones of the Western Wall. Another song, We shall Never Lose Jerusalem came first in the previous contest. Again, lines such as “we have six million reasons, deep in our hearts they’ll live on: their memory lays witness to our claim” express the poignancy of his message. Sam lived in Birmingham at the time, so he was a habitué of the Leeds contest scene, where Shalom Salaam was entered too. He recalls a curious anecdote about its performance there: “I had asked the stage manager to start the first notes, which were a deep helicopter-like hum, louder than the rest of the music. The volume therefore, had to be reduced as soon as the vocals started. That didn’t happen though, so I leapt backstage to check what was happening — only to find the stage manager dancing with her husband on the notes of my song. Unfortunately, the audience
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • DECEMBER 2014
26/11/2014 09:43