I don't usually post videos (especially not of me singing!), so when I posted this one on my social media accounts a couple days ago, I was really shocked and surprised at the overwhelming reception it got. In less than two days on Twitter alone, my little video of me singing a snippet of a popular love song in Arabic was "trending" and was viewed more than 50 thousand times! I certainly didn't expect that.
And then this morning, someone messaged me that my video had been on Saudi TV!!!
I first learned this song more than 40 years ago shortly after I met my husband in Arizona. The original hit song was composed and sung by beloved Saudi singer, the late Talal Maddah. The lyrics come from a poem written by Prince Badr ibn Abdulmohsin Al Saud, one of the most famous poets of Saudi Arabia. The name of the song is "Zaman As Samt," which means "Time of Silence." To hear the song in its entirety sung by Talal Maddah (with English translation), CLICK HERE.
For those of you interested in what the lyrics of the song actually mean, such beautiful haunting poetry often doesn't translate well from Arabic to English. So just the lines that I sing here say something like this -
My lover, oh, my lover
I have engraved your name on my voice
I have engraved it on the wall of time
On the color of the tranquil sky, on the valley
On my death and on my birth
On the color of the tranquil sky
My lover, oh, my lover
I shall spend my life waiting for you
Do not deprive me of your presence
For my life is yours
And so it departs
FYI - I've only ever posted one other video of myself in all these years, and that one was of me explaining why I wasn't allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, back before women finally achieved that right in June 2018.
Linking to - OUR WORLD TUESDAY and My Corner of the World
