Last summer, around the time that damned war started, 26 year-old singer/songwriter Aya Korem, from Upper Nazareth, released her first album - Aya Korem. It was a hit, and three of the songs stayed high on the radio playlists for weeks: they are Summer, A Simple Love Song, and my favourite - Yonatan Shapira.
On the Hebrew Wikipedia page for Aya Korem's album, there's a bit of background about the Yonatan Shapira for whom the song is named, under 'trivia': "Yonatan Shapira is an air force pilot who was one of the initiators of the Pilots' Letter* that called for a refusal of orders to participate in targeted assassinations. The letter was written following the [2002] assassination of Salah Shadah [then head of Hamas's military wing in Gaza]. Shapira and Korem knew each other when they studied at the Rimon School of Music. The line from the song, 'My heart is beating hard under my clothes/Yonatan Shapira, I want your babies' was a private joke between the two of them."
*Read more about the very controversial issue of refusing to serve or follow orders here.
Thanks to YouTube, we've got the video clip for Yonatan Shapira, the song; and thanks to me-me-me, all you non-Hebrew speakers have a translation of the lyrics below. ;) They rhyme in Hebrew.
Yonatan
Shapira
Twenty-four
years old, 1 metre 60 and a bit
Green eyes and almost-black hair
Looking for The One and waiting to be swept away
Wanted: Groom. Wedding dress already purchased.
Twenty-four years old, interested in a boyfriend
Tall, understanding, up to 30 years old – maybe a bit more
And he could be a pilot or he could be a navigator
It doesn't make a difference. It doesn't matter to me.
All men are the same
If one leaves today another will come tomorrow
But Mom never met Yonatan Shapira
And if we can be frank for a minute
It could be discreet
If, theoretically speaking, there’s already a girlfriend
We could meet at my place to discuss the details
For a serious relationship: Single woman with an open mind
Chorus: And Mom always told me
All men are the same
If one leaves today another will come tomorrow
But Mom never met Yonatan Shapira
We’re sitting together on the beach, blue sea
A bottle of beer
It’s just me, the seagulls and Yonatan Shapira
My heart is beating hard under my clothes
Yonatan Shapira, I want your babies
Chorus: And Mom always told me
All men are the same
If one leaves today another will come tomorrow
But Mom never met Yonatan Shapira
Beloved wears a
thick coat even when it’s already hot
My beloved winds a scarf around his neck
When he looks up at the sky it is gray
He waits until he has recuperated
Before he comes to me
Chorus: And he
will come to me like summer
Without hesitation, all at once
And I will be warm
He will come to me like water
He will come and cover me
Beloved is far
away from here
And he sings songs about me
And he sends thoughts and letters
He looks through all the pretty women
He thinks and wants only me
Chorus: And he
will come to me like summer
Without hesitation, all at once
And I will be warm
He will come to me like water
He will come and cover me
When my beloved
comes like two bells
That sweet, familiar touch will ring again
And then we will say all the little things
All the things that are still left to say
Chorus: And he
will come to me like summer
Without hesitation, all at once
And I will be warm
He will come to me like water
He will come and cover me
I’ve been waiting
for one week two months and a year
It seems like forever and it feels like always
My beloved runaway, surely you know
I love you, but I love myself too
Chorus: And he will come to me like summer
Without hesitation, all at once
And I will be warm
He will come to me like water
He will come and cover me
***
