Bish Bosch | Ahom...Ahom...Ahom (1981)
While it seems unlikely the uber-prolific Ahmed Adaweya waited three years from his apparent last release to this one, I'm cataloging this one now because it's the next in line for which there is an undisputed release date. Also, given its response to the national turbulence in its release year (1981), it shares a particularly strong relationship to 1978's Salam Murabae.
On October 6, 1981, Egypt's third President, Anwar Sadat, was assassinated by members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The motive was likely Sadat's participation in the Camp David Accords (see this post).
The assassination was immediately preceded by Sadat's large-scale imprisonment and arrest of numerous ideological and political "enemies" under the guise of a "national emergency." But the unrest had reached a boiling point earlier in the year when, on June 6, a failed military coup led Sadat to begin to crack down on the opposition.
Days after his death, Sadat was replaced by his former Vice President, Hosni Mubarak, who remained in office for three decades until the 2011 revolution.
There is no question that some, if not all, of Ahom...Ahom...Ahom is a direct response to at least some of these political events, especially given the tracks "Shish Bish" and "6/6." "Shish Bish" is a Turkish strategy-driven board game, similar to backgammon, that literally means "Six Five," and which remains wildly popular throughout the Mediterranean.
Overall, the album swells with thick, frothy orchestration and a subtle but ever-present electric bass buoying each track to new sonic heights. The first track, "Hez Ya Hob," which I believe means something like "Shake Oh Love," snakes its way from an upbeat minor key bouncy pop opening, through dark, minor-key excursions that soon brighten hopefully before popping back into the "pop." In the major-key section, Ahmed recites the word in triplicate that becomes the album's title: "ahom ahom ahom." Ahom has a number of meanings, chief of which is "important" or "most important." But it has other potential shades, including "feel," "deject" and "trouble." Brilliantly, the orchestra goes major-key and light during the fade-out while Ahmed's voice laments in a minor-key run, setting us up for the rest of this beautiful, bumpy ride.
This might be Hassan Abu El Seoud's (music) and Hassan Abo Etman's (lyrics) singular triumph, an even greater album perhaps than 1977's high-water mark, Bint El Sultan.
(Listen to "Hez Ya Hob")
(Listen to "Shish Bish")
(Listen to "6/6")
(Listen to "Alayh Tayhih")
(Listen to "Wilad Algharam")
(Listen to "Mawwal Atshan")
şeş beş is in persian; 6 and 5. never heard of a turkish strategy game. turkish people used to name persian names of the numbers while they were playing backgammon which is a persian game. it makes it cooler.
ReplyDelete1 yek
2 dü
3 se
4 cehar
5 penç
6 şeş
Sheesh beesh definitely feels political, I got my Arabic teacher to go through the lyrics with me recently, a rough translation:
ReplyDelete"I'm playing with you with good luck
But you're playing with good moves
Don't play fast and loose,
our knot must be untangled
The taste of basbousa and nothing else
But you don't want to feel me
But if you don't see me, put on your glasses and look
In order to stop doubt"
And then the mawal is something like
"Your lovers are many, oh heart, as long as you have money. When your money gets less, they get less. Money is the master in this world, oh take care master. He who grinds patience (i.e. has a lot of it), give me a handful, and maybe god will balance the scale";then something about shedding tears for all the good people living in poverty
But I think the title of 6/6 is probably completely coincidental - the actual song is a children's birthday song and it seems to also have been released under the title "Eid milad" ("birthday"). There's a film scene featuring Adaweya with bellydancer Fifi Abdou performing this song at a little boy's birthday party. "Ya setta ala ala ala ala setta, ya shamadan el-hitta" = "oh perfect one, you're the candlestick of the neighborhood (i.e. you light it up with your presence)"
6/6 "setta ala setta" is apparently used colloquially in Egyptian Arabic in the same kind of way as 10/10 is in English, meaning perfect or exactly right, and the same phrase turns up again in a very similar context later on the album in "Ayela Tayha" as "setta ala setta, nawart al-hitta" ("she's perfect, she lit up the neighborhood with her presence")
Thank you so much for this, Rachael!
DeleteThank you for this whole blog - I've been deep in the grip of an Ahmed Adaweya obsession for some time now (to the point that I've barely listened to anything else since last December), and this has been a fantastic and very appreciated resource and listening guide.
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