Halim

A miraculous song that is truly unique with some innovation in almost every aspect. The performance of Halim in the song was perhaps one of his best ever. The song was composed by Abdel Wahab in one of his most original masterpiece. It was written by the Egyptian poet, Hussein El-Sayed.

The song’s music creator, Abdel Wahab, took on the baton of the rapidly evolving Egyptian music from Sayed Darwish in the early 20s, only to steer the wagon in a different but equally innovative route. Starting out with the bit submerged faster-rhythmed moulds of Middle Eastern music in new compositions that signaled how a culture was rising rapidly and impressively in a phoenix-like manner. In the 30s Abdel Wahab took up Egyptian music to entirely new levels, as he fused the music with Samba, Rhomba, Tango, and Walses. In 40s, he reached his climax by fusing Western Classic music with Middle Eastern one in pieces that in my opinion deserve to be included in World heritage. In 50s, a new musical crew lead by the genius, Kamal El-Taweel, picked up the clock of the age and came up with new line of songs performed with the introduction of new instruments while being up-tempo and in-line with the age’s usic of Sinatra, Dean Martin, new Italian and French Chansons. Abdel Wahab did not just catch up, but stayed on top with music that matched the age and he even threw several thrusts at trying to diversify the lines of innovation.

In the 60s, Innovations continued though they followed entirely different routes with the arrival of the Egyptian heritage’s gold digger, Baligh Hamdy. Baligh composed many pentagonistic pieces mixed in the 50s crew style, as well as Abdel Wahab’s. His pieces were original, pristine, and rather sweet. He also introduced electric guitars and electric organ to the main streams’ band. It is slight stretch but one might define mainstream 60s music as heritage in new outfits. A peculiar aspect that always attracts my attention about the 60s musical scene is mainstream’s utter rejection of pop and rock n roll. My rough speculation is that it had something to do with creeping authoritarianism hat worked counter-clockwise despite seeming progressive. Baligh’s music bore a potential for assimilating pop, but, anyway, counterfactuals are useless. Some niche bands played pop and rock though they were confined to a box of silliness labeled, “Beatles” as synonym for some stylish youth westernized in what was perceived as comic manner. It was in the 60s context that the shared song, “Fatet Ganbena” , or ‘She Passed by us’ produced in the early 70s should be situated.

If I would provide myself with the freedom to venture a little bit, I would have toyed with expressions and dubbed that song as the perfect compromise of the whole portfolio of Egyptian music in the first half of the 20th century. Yet, it was not a neutral point. Despite the slick and smooth inclusion of different musical types, the dominant overtones were slow rock/pop with most salient roles for electric guitars and organ. The switch from one couplet to another, was marked by a smooth change in tones and what was really peculiar about this Middle-Eastern moulded rock/pop song is that regardless being a one-hour piece, the hip feeling was never lost. Further, compromise was seen in the elements of Tarab present in each couplet along with 50s crew overall kind of mixage. Such fusion played several roles that contributed to the sublime and ambient charm of the song. It gave pop a contemporaneous Egyptian feel that could even be rendered at the moment as part of some experimental rock/pop band, deriving an element of uniqueness from the Tarab part. Second, the 50s crew instrumentation imparted a classic element to the pop/rock overtones, thus giving the song an exquisite touch. Rather inadvertently, or who knows what was on Abdel Wahab’s mind, the entirety of the fusion redeemed the song both specially cool yet immune against the ridiculousness Egyptian mainstream associated with local rock/pop.

Lyrics were not less innovative. They were simple few words repeated in each couplet with slight variations in which Halim expressed astonishment, bewilderment, and infatuation at girl who passed by his friend and him while walking down the curb. He couldn’t tell at which one of them she was smiling. The encounters with the ‘Just a nice girl with no special attributes’ became frequent and in each couplet the level of bewilderment was elevated in almost the same simple several words with minimum tweaks. It was Halim’s performance that made the difference. So, few words carrying all those differing sensations through subtle changes in performance and word tweaks just perfectly matched the rock/pop overtones of the song. The whole song was like the elixir of life dissolved in a glass of tap water. Quite impressively, the build up of words and sensations constructed sort of ultra short story running like a pyramid from base to top.

Halim’s performance in the song even topped the ingenuity of the lyrics/music pair. The look in his eyes was buried somewhere between gaze and stare which along with the deepness of his black eyes and subtle tete expressions coupled with almost unconceivable sways conveyed the sense of witnessing a primordial abyss of love whose secrets are like threads of magic. His voice was sweet like drops of ordinary water in mouth of thirsty and it expressed with an everyday metrics feelings at the essence of life. His hippishly stylish hair which rather bizarrely matched a suit and a spotted tie just fitted in with the song and expression in a visually mesmerizing scene of colours which were faint despite the brightness. His faint physique certainly contributed.