Witty, Wary ‘Egyptian Revolution Blues’ Goes Viral (Jerusalem Post)
Jul 09Witty, wary ‘Egyptian Revolution Blues’ goes viral
By DAVID BRINN
Sandy Cash decides to express herself in the way she knows best: By writing a topical song with barbed humor and posting it on YouTube.
What do you do if you’re a local folk singer with a sharp wit alarmed by the events unfolding in Egypt and what it means for Israel?
Sandy Cash decided to express herself in the way she knows best, by writing a topical song with barbed humor and posting it on YouTube.
The song, “Egyptian Revolution Blues,” a satirical warning over viewing the Egyptian revolution in a simplistic good guy/bad guy mode, has garnered a few thousand views in only a few days online. And Cash is hoping that “what ‘We Con the World’ did for the fans of the Gaza flotilla, (referring to last year’s satiric video produced by Latma which became a huge viral hit) this song will do for those who think the unrest in Cairo is all about Power to the People (not to mention Peace, Love and Yellow Sunshine).”
The clever clip juxtaposes images of 1960s civil rights demonstrations in the US with images of anti-government protesters in Cairo sporting photos of President Hosni Mubarak with stars of David scrawled across his face, while the song’s lyrics sport witty couplets like “Al-Jazeera, SKY and CNN, it’s like the thrill of Tiananmen” and “With huddled masses breathing free, while Mubarak twists in effigy.”
For the last two decades, since making aliya from Detroit, Cash has been a staple on the ‘Anglo’ entertainment circle, and has appeared at popular events like the Jacob’s Ladder Festival and released her own CDs. Despite having written dozens of her own songs, she said that “Egypt Revolution Blues” was a revelation for her.
“It was the fasted folk song I’ve ever written,” said Cash on Thursday. “I wrote they lyrics in two hours last Friday and the tune came into my head between candle-lighting and Kabalat Shabbat that night.
“I realized it was the kind of topical song that I would either sing with my family and put away in a drawer where it would die, or I could try to get it out immediately because it was so tied into what’s going on right now in Egypt.”
Cash sent a rough MP3 version of the song to her producer David Epstein of Shemesh Productions in Beit Shemesh, and early last week, they added other instrumentation, recorded the vocals in a studio and completed the song. Cash then approached a friend who creates creative videos for events and together, they storyboarded the song, found accompanying photos and within a few hours, they had completed a video which they uploaded to YouTube.
“I put it up on Tuesday night and by Wednesday morning, it had already gotten hundreds of hits,” said Cash. “As of Thursday afternoon, it had received over 4,000 views.”
“Comedy is a great vehicle for education and opening peoples’ minds,” said Cash explaining why she chose satire to magnify a serious issue. “Even though it’s flippant and funny, there is a message there. I hope that naïve people in the West will realize that the story of this latest revolution in the Arab World is much more complicated than it might seem.”
“There are very real risks that very negative forces could come to power and the world as a whole, not just Israel, could end up being the worse off for it. I’m not a big fan of Hosni Mubarak – he was an authoritarian dictator who has ruled without elections for over 30 years. But he’s the evil we know. We don’t know what evil is coming down the pike.”
Whatever it is, Cash will likely be ready to face it with her sharpened pen.