Aaron Razel's Where I played last Summer

Where I played last Summer
Words and melody by Aaron Razel

Verse 1:
"So where did you play last summer?"
The masses ask me.
"We saw you there with a guitar, on the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea.
How did you get in? How did you get out?"
How was I taken out, to be exact…
It's already winter and it still chokes me up.

I performed with a friend in a park where children will no longer play…
I performed on the grass, how the youth danced… today only winds frolic between the splinters…
We danced together with families around the Shabbat table, homes filled with love and light…
All of this didn't touch/move*1 the bulldozer.

I passed by an empty house, outside sat a woman full of tears that don't understand…
I looked inside and noticed that the people (who packed up their things) managed to write something on the walls before they left.
And no one will ever read what they wrote, because the house was turned into a pile of bones, into a pile of ruins*2.
The writing is on the wall.

Chorus:
So don't ask me where I played last summer
And what I did there on the beaches of the Mediterranean Sea
Between the Lamentations and the Psalms, songs of faith and trust
We sang over and over again until the last moment, the verse and the chorus…

They destroyed the verse/house – the chorus was left*3
Here the chorus crawls between the ruins of concrete
They destroyed the verse/house – the vision was left
They destroyed the walls, the air was left where the window once was, where the dream once was, you can still look out and dream.


Verse 2:
I passed by fences and blockades with my guitar, I said to them (the guards)
"I'm just smuggling in some happy sounds to people going through hard times."
And I played so much that I busted my strings and I don't have the strength, until today, to put new ones on…
And you can play, even when the strings get ripped, if you can rip people from their homes…
Our heart is still ripped to shreds.

I came to a group of teens, I brought them drums and sweets, it was late…
They didn't want anything, just sat around me but they weren't really there, trying hard not to look at tomorrow
Because their home was packed up and their parents had already left, so where does that put them in the world?
I returned to my wife, who was waiting in the car, and we drove to Shirat HaYam*4.

Chorus:
So if already you asked where I played last summer,
I was there on the beaches of the Meditarranean Sea
Between the lamentations and the Psalms, songs of faith and trust
We sang over and over again until the last moment, the verse and the chorus…

They destroyed the verse/house – the chorus was left*3
Here the chorus crawls between the ruins of concrete
They destroyed the verse/house – the vision was left
They destroyed the walls, the air was left where the window once was, where the dream once was, you can still look out and dream.

Verse 3:
But yesterday I saw how they're building a new park right next to my house, right in front of my eyes
And when I played a quiet song for the expellees the next day, they said "give us something upbeat, we wanna dance til the heavens!"
The simple faith that all comes from His hand, gives us the joy…
How can you be sad when you look and see how Jerusalem is growing and being built!


Translation notes:

*1 = didn't "reegesh" – didn't emotionally move – the bulldozer
*2 = here he quoted the Bible, using the words of the prophets to describe mass destruction
*3 = the word in Hebrew "bayit" means both home/house, as well as verse. He's punning that.
*4 = the name of one of the communities of Gush Katif. It means "the Song of the Sea" and is a reference to the Song the Jews sang after crossing the Red Sea