Perseverance
I never was good at making habits stick. The freeform fluidity of going from one activity to another, experiencing different things – different ways of creativity, different aspects of life – always felt more natural. The problem is it leads to becoming a jack of all trades, perhaps, but a master of none. Over the years i’ve tried different methods of keeping myself on track, schedules, systems.. everything seemed to eventually fail. Years later I would come across videos about ADHD and ADD that made suspect I just spent all this time undiagnosed.
The past couple of months have been quite intensive, especially in trying to adhere to a strict physical therapy regime (since I feel I’m stagnating, and it’s been a while since I’ve seen real progress), and also in matters of bureaucracy, trying to get my driving license back, and a car. Add to that the ever escalating war and sense of dread.. it led to me neglecting promises I made to myself, especially in regards to the translation project and releasing songs on this site.
I still have dozens of translations waiting for me to record them, and dozens of original songs I want to add to my ever growing online library. Nevertheless, I also try to balance it with some self-forgiveness, allowing myself to flow and sometimes neglect these responsibilities. I guess to some extent feeling I’m writing all of this to the void, that no one actually reads it and it’s all – at least currently – me practicing and working on those musical muscles that atrophied just as much as my physical muscles did – is comforting. Takes off the pressure.
I’ll find focus again. I need to expel these songs and translations before I can write new material, and I yearn to write new songs. I need it. Soon, I’ll get there.
this week I’m again releasing two translations – one of a song by Gillian Welch – later covered by artists such as Father John Misty (from whose version I drawn most of my inspiration) and Phoebe Bridgers. Another, is a song “Out of the Depths” (Mi’maamakim) by Idan Raichel which is based mostly on lines taken from Psalms. Lastly another one of my gloomy songs, written somewhere around 2021, when all seemed lost. I really like the solo I wrote for it on electric guitar, it’s always fun to play and really dig into.
1. Everything is Free – this song by Gillian Welch was written just after Napster was becoming prevalent, and litigation against it started. Gillian foresaw where the wind was blowing, and lamented the death of the old school way of writing, releasing and publishing music. In time we learned that people adjust – but the way musicians could earn an honest living through songwriting never really recovered, ever since the invention of the MP3. It’s a beautiful song, with a beautiful melody and a message that still resonates this day as clear as it did back then.
Hebrew Version – English Version – Side-by-Side Translation Player
2. Depths (Mi’maamakim) – This song was a huge hit in Israel, and in other parts of the world even. It’s title and main refrain is taken from Pslams, and I went to the official translation of the bible to try and reference and translate it as accurately as I could. I sang an earlier version of this translation in at my cousin’s wedding in Germany. It’s one of the translations I’m most proud of.
Hebrew Version – English Version – Side-by-Side Translation Player
3. Set Me Free – This song was written during that very dark period in my life when all hope was lost. Still, I like it because it’s less mopey and more angry at the circumstances, and there’s a real catharsis I enjoy when playing it. It’s currently very sparse on instrumentation, I imagine it’ll become very different if I ever tackle it again.
Thanks for reading and listening,
Yair (Screwup)