Botbol’s Moroccan Hits
Enjoying this new Botbol CD on a snowy Sunday afternoon. No liner notes, though. Darn! But it does include the well-known Yah Rayah by Dahmane Harrachi:
How many overpopulated countries and empty lands have you seen ?
How much time have you wasted?
How much time have you yet to lose?
Oh stranger in those foreign lands you’ve got to give many sacrifices
Destiny and Time follow their course and yet you ignore that fact of course.
Why is your heart so sad, why are you so miserable like this?
Hardship will never last and you may learn or build something.
Days won’t last, just as your youth and mine didn’t.
Oh poor fellow who missed his chance just as I missed mine
Eh, traveller let me give you a piece of advice to follow right away
Look out for your best interest before you sell or buy anything.
Hey, sleepy one, I’ve heard about you
What happened to you has happened to me too,
This is it til the heart returns to its Creator.
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I’m going to check it out.
That’s great! And glad you have subscribed.
Here some info in response to a FB question: The song was written and performed in 1973 by Algerian chaabi musician, Dahmane Harrachi. It was performed and recorded by popular raī singer, Rachid Taha, in Paris in 1993 and 1997 when it was the number 7 on most popular French singles list. it reached the top 20 again when Taha died in 2018–but my neighbors were playing a recording and singing it at a party with friends in their apartment in 2020.
His music isn’t on Spotify. How can I listen to it?
Here’s Botbol’s Ya Rayah that I mention in the post: https://youtu.be/ATi1tkUXySU. You can find Botbol on YouTube and by hunting around on the internet. His full name is Haim Botbol though he is simply called Botbol and not to be confused with his musician brother, Marcel Botbol, who died of Covid in 2020, or Jacob Abitbol, Haim and Marcel’s musician father.