Enough

I wrote this song for an assignment in my Arts in Context class, for which we had to explore artists of cultures contrasting to our own and then create something that is inspired by a different culture. I looked into Palestinian music and chose to write a song in solidarity with Palestinians, who are currently the target of a brutal genocide orchestrated by Israel. I chose to set the poem “Enough for Me” by Fadwa Tuqan (translated by Naomi Shihad Nye and Salma Khadra Jayyusi). This poem expresses a deep love for one’s country in the face of one’s mortality:

Enough for me to die on her earth
be buried in her
to melt and vanish into her soil
then sprout forth as a flower
played with by a child from my country.
Enough for me to remain
in my country's embrace
to be in her close as a handful of dust
a sprig of grass
a flower.

(source: https://allpoetry.com/Enough-For-Me)

The spirit of the Palestinians, and their love for their country, persists through all these challenges and all this injustice and oppression.

When composing the song, I read a little about Arabic music theory and tried to imitate a modal sound, such as by using E half-flat rather than E flat. I thought that I was using the mode Maqam Nikriz, but now when I look up that mode, it doesn’t seem to match up with what I was doing, so I don’t know if I somehow mixed it up with a different mode. If you happen to be more knowledgeable on this topic, please enlighten me. Nevertheless, I mostly followed my own melodic intuition and did not really try to imitate a particular musician even though that was encouraged in my class assignment.

Here are some ways that you can support Palestinians in Gaza: https://afsc.org/news/6-ways-you-can-support-palestinians-gaza

And in the United States, I believe it is also important to have conversations with family members, neighbors, friends, etc. on the situation in Palestine and nearby nations. It is hard to change people’s minds about an issue, but we still need to try. Traditional media is very powerful and has shaped American’s opinions very strongly, but we the people can fight against that and offer a different narrative.

I hope you enjoy the song! And please share!