Keef (2006)
[Keef means "How ?" and the song title is abbreviated from
"How can you love Lebanon," abbreviated further into
"How can you love," and further into, simply, "How ?"]
[This song was a comment on the 2006 war,
one of many the singer has had the pleasure of experiencing.]
Life, all in all, is but forty, fifty,
sixty years at most;
we keep on "eating" blows (getting beaten up),
the jackass is lucky, he eats barley.
Some people are born to die
and some die in order to live.
I am neither an angel in the sky
nor a cow grazing on grass.
I am a citizen who has had his fill
of "eating" slaps in the face and on the neck.
My skin was once just like silk,
now it has turned into alligator skin.
Alligators.
Lebanon was the land of love and loved ones.
It has become the land of political parties and militias.
I too want to establish a political party: Yours truly is the president of
the Free Electric Current Party, and this is good news because
you can't love Lebanon in the dark.
What's the matter, man ? Don't you need to see it in order to love it ?
How can you love it in pitch dark ?
How can you love Lebanon on an empty stomach ?
They have driven food prices a little too high for me.
If the seller wants to live, does that mean that I must fast ?
I yearn for those days before I was weaned off breast milk.
Man does not live by bread alone.
Feed me a bit of "Labneh" so I could love you, oh Lebanon.
At least a morsel of cheese.
["Labneh" is a local dairy product - basically strained yogurt.]
If you want to love Lebanon in a proper capacity,
you would want to experience it from the north to the south.
You'd want to traipse around among its valleys and its mountains;
you'd need a lot of petrol to be able to love it in its entirety.
But it is going to be a while until the price of petrol goes down.
You'll have to postpone loving Lebanon. It is not going to fly away.
It won't fly away. It will fly, it won't fly, it will fly.
(As in: He loves me, he loves me not, he loves me).
Last but not least, after a long life,
how can you love Lebanon from afar ?
If you have left your country for the sake of your children
or because your home has been reduced to rubble - you can't be blamed.
So, love it, if you can love it, and if you can't:
Get a visa, pack your luggage,
and go, travel, immigrate.
Who is holding you back ?
Who has their foot on your tail ?
This is the reality, my brethren,
the reality of Lebanon.