Misirlou in Yiddish Avigail

Music: traditional, lyrics: Chaim Tauber Olga Avigail - vocal/arrangement, Ittai Binnun - ney/music production, Ilan Kenan - oud, bass guitar, Ivan Ceresnjes - drumms footage of Yemenite Jewish henna and wedding ceremony, courtesy of Talia Collis, The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive In 1927, an Istanbul-born Greek musician, Tetos Demetriades, having recently translocated to the US, recorded a piece of music he remembered from his youth. “Misirlou”, loosely translated as “Egyptian Girl”, was a swaying, erotic folk song performed in the rebetiko style that was popular among Greek Anatolians: “The sweet way you look at me lights flames in my heart . . . honey seeps from your lips.” The mesmerising and catchy melody, not credited with a composer, proved popular and the song was performed in a variety of styles in subsequent years. It also became something of what we would today call a “world music sensation”: versions were recorded in Arabic and Yiddish, and various communities of the easte