There are very few songs that I’ve gotten addicted to in my life, but I’m not talking about the regular kind of addiction. I’m talking insane addiction. Passionate addiction. Rewind addiction. The kind of addiction where I’d make a mixtape for myself with only that one song. Put one song on loop on a CD player. Have a whole playlist on iTunes with one track. Get addicted, addicted, addicted.
This year’s addiction is the first one minute and 33 seconds of a Mashrou Leila track:
Hamed Sinno’s booming voice is haunting. The keyboards are haunting. And the lyrics… oh, the lyrics.
Don’t leave me like this | ما تتركني هيك I’ve been searching for you | عم بفتّش عليك At the bottom of every glass | بأسفل كل كاس Between the sheets of others | بين تخوت هالناس Imagining your face | اتوهّم وجهك Calling out your name | وبنادي اسمك Like it is tattooed | كأنه موشوم His name on my lips | عشفافي اسمو Mixed by the devil | مزاجها عفريت With deadly ink | بحبر مميت There is no cure | ما إلو دوا خيبة الهوا ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك
حبيبي خليك و بيحلى السمر بنشرب القمر ونوره بيِرْويك بقتفلك النجوم بركّبها عتاج ببني لنا ملاج ورا الغيوم واذا هجرت خد قلبي معك خد روحي معك و اتركني بالمُر ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك ما تتركني هيك
I am not, never was, and probably will never be into heavy metal music. As much as I love hard rock like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, and others, heavy metal is just not my type.
But I like music. I like culture. I love it when people have ideas and they express these ideas in their own way. I don’t care if I don’t find heavy metal particularly awesome; I’m happy to acknowledge that it’s awesome for other people. In a society as suffocating as ours, I also appreciate social circles that allow different kinds of people to feel safe when they’re being themselves.
The metal scene in Jordan did all of those things.
Once upon a time.
Then the Jordanian government shot it down, after falling prey to some crappy journalism in local media.
Here’s a great mini-movie about the now-dead Jordanian metal scene:
I was never really involved in the metal scene, but I did check it out a few times in 2005 and 2006. It was strange. It was different. It was beautiful.
We really, really need to see more of Jordan’s marching bands locally.
Imagine if all the beautiful things you see in this march like the attention to detail, orderliness, celebration of cultural differences within Jordan, etc. became a part of every Jordanian.
