I had a friend who
went to war
A man of peace and
not the sword
They brought him
home one day
A bullet in his
chest
May his memory be
blessed
In the name of all
the winds
In the name of all
his friends
From the east down
to the west
May his memory be
blessed
Then take this
song as your bequest
May your spirit
lie at rest
And from the east
down to the west
May your memory be
blessed
This was my first
song on and for the piano. I wrote it about two years after Eli was blown up in
an ambush in a bus taking milhouimnikim - Israeli reservists - to the Beqaa
valley in Lebanon in 1982. The men who killed him were PLO fighters in the pay
of the Syrians. The song took a long time, because I didn’t know who to blame
for his death. The PLO I exonerated, since their cause was just and Eli had
been sent into battle as a soldier to kill them. Their Syrian paymasters I
exonerated, because they were themselves in the pay of the Soviet Union; just
as I exonerated the Soviets, who were simply the victims of their own
propaganda. The makers of the bullet I exonerated, since their aim wasn’t death
but profit; God had declared Himself immune from prosecution; the driver of the
ambushed lorry was only obeying orders; and War itself was far too abstract a
phenomenon to bear the blame for Man's stupidities. In the end I had no one but
Eli himself to accuse, since everyone else had been vindicated, and all men
protest their innocence.
You can find David Prashker at:
If
you would like to include "Song For Eli" in your repertoire,
either for paid public performance or to record for commercial
purposes, or if you would like to re-use the recordings attached to this
blog-page for commercial purposes, contact
argaman@theargamanpress.com.
Use of this song, and/or these recordings, for
non-commercial purposes, is not simply permitted but invited.
Words and music by David Prashker
Copyright © 2014 David Prashker
All rights reserved
The Argaman Press
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