(SOUNDBITE OF FAIRUZ SONG, "SAALOUNY EL NAS")
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Walk into any cafe in Lebanon and you'll often find morning coffee sipped with the soulful voice of Fairuz drifting in the background. She often sings of love...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAALOUNY EL NAS")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic).
FADEL: ...Of longing...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HABBAITAK BE EL SAIF")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic).
FADEL: ...Of homeland.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LE BEIRUT")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic).
FADEL: For decades, she's been regarded as the voice of Lebanon.
DANNY HAJJAR: Fairuz is a mythological character, I would say. She has become larger than her own life.
FADEL: That's music journalist Danny Hajjar. He writes primarily about emerging Arab artists. But in a recent piece for the Guardian and in the midst of a new war and Israel's invasion of Lebanon, he turned his gaze to Fairuz.
HAJJAR: She is probably the only true uniting public figure in Lebanon, where across sex, across political beliefs, people really drop all of that and come together in celebration of her and her music and what she stands for.
FADEL: But unity has long been elusive for Lebanon. From 1975 to 1990, the country was engulfed in a religious civil war over power as Israel and Syria both invaded and occupied. It was a war I witnessed during my childhood. We'd visit my father's family in the summers and see a Lebanon of rubble, of checkpoints. With the power usually out, we'd eat dinners of watermelon and cheese by candlelight.
(SOUNDBITE OF FAIRUZ SONG, "BAHEBEK YA LEBNAN")
FADEL: It was against some of that backdrop that Fairuz released a rallying cry for unity and resilience, "Bahebek Ya Lebnan" - "I Love You Lebanon."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAHEBEK YA LEBNAN")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic).
FADEL: What is that song? And what has it meant to people, Lebanese people, when it came out in 1976?
HAJJAR: Yeah, so that song came at a time when there was foreign occupation in the country. There was a lot of, obviously, internal sectarian strife. And this was Fairuz's way of saying that, you know, she loves the entirety of the country.
FADEL: And I was listening to it in preparing for this interview. And it does make you emotional when you really think about what she's saying. Like, I love you, Lebanon, from the north to the south, the plains. I love you when you're crazy. And when people ask me what's happening, I tell them Lebanon is being reborn.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAHEBEK YA LEBNAN")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic).
FADEL: The Lebanon of dignity, of the prideful, stubborn people. And I found myself getting emotional almost because of the numbers of times I have listened to it in times of crisis.
HAJJAR: This was Fairuz's way of saying that, you know, she loves the entirety of the country. Doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, how you pray, what you believe in politically. We are all together in this country and we're all united.
FADEL: Yeah.
HAJJAR: And so it really was this sort of love letter and a song of resilience in a lot of ways for Lebanon. The issue that has kind of happened in the 50 years since it's been released is that Lebanon has faced multiple crises fairly regularly at this point. You know, it came during multiple Israeli invasions of the country. It came during Syrian occupation of the country. It was played during the 2019 revolution across Lebanon, where that was really one time where it felt as though...
FADEL: Where people were protesting corruption.
HAJJAR: Yes, absolutely. And it felt like that was something that cut across party lines. And it's that song, along with a few others, that constantly get replayed in those times of crisis or in those times of tragedy or war or what have you. And that song has become something that was once hopeful and uniting. It's now become largely very depressing and triggering for a lot of people to listen to.
FADEL: You talk about how it's become something else for a new generation of Lebanese. What does it represent now to people when they listen to it?
HAJJAR: Yeah. I mean, you know, I spoke to a couple of people. And, you know, one person said, I get rattled when I hear this song. It reminds me of those traumatic times that I still haven't even been able to process because we're currently living through another one. And I spoke to one producer in the Middle East who's worked with a lot of very popular Arab artists. And...
FADEL: Yeah.
HAJJAR: You know, he said, I have all the respect for Fairuz, but I've never lived in the Lebanon that she sings about.
FADEL: Yeah.
HAJJAR: And that's a very hard thing to come to terms with. And I think, you know, for the Lebanese people, they're sort of tired of this trope that, you know, the Lebanese people are resilient, and we can just rebuild and we can be reborn.
FADEL: I mean, I can't tell you how many times people are like, I don't want to be resilient. I don't want to be the phoenix rising from the ashes.
HAJJAR: Right.
FADEL: I just want to live.
HAJJAR: They're tired.
FADEL: Yeah
HAJJAR: People are just exhausted. And so they hear this and they say, well, I'm exhausted by this narrative. I don't want to rebuild this.
FADEL: When you said there are certain songs that point to the more explicit feeling of Lebanese today, what's an example of that?
HAJJAR: Well, I think, again, in the 50 years since that song came out, there have been other artists, younger artists, other genres that permeated Lebanon and maybe speak more to the anger of the people.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BILIBALID")
SANDY HENOUD: (Singing in Arabic).
HAJJAR: I would look to Lebanese rap, for example, that is much more politically explicit and much more direct in terms of its anger. I would look at someone like the rapper Bu Nasser Touffar, who is very political, who's very explicit, who talks openly about government corruption and what's happening in the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BILIBALID")
BU NASSER TOUFFAR: (Rapping in Arabic).
HAJJAR: So these are the sorts of artists and songs, I think, that speak more to how a younger generation who's had to live through these tragedies multiple times, it speaks to how they feel. And when they hear something like "Bahebek Ya Lebnan," it's of a bygone era. It speaks to this unattainable Lebanon that simply in their minds, does not exist and may never exist. Now people look at that song and say, well, I don't know that I could ever experience a Lebanon like this. I need to listen to something that speaks more to my frustration, that mobilizes me, that puts a fire in me to take charge.
FADEL: That was music journalist Danny Hajjar. He was speaking about an iconic Lebanese song that once represented unity and hope but holds a very different message for a generation of Lebanese living through yet another war in their country.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAHEBEK YA LEBNAN")
FAIRUZ: (Singing in Arabic). Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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