Short thread on @IshayRibo’s new single Keter Melukha:

At this point no one is surprised at Ishay’s lyric-writing or compositional abilities. What is surprising is that he can make music that perfectly captures the cultural moment in a matter of weeks. 1

2/It’s fitting that the words focus so much on space and the “in-between”, whether chronological or social, as musically the song is a departure from Ishay’s tonal comfort zone. As far as I know he’s written only two other songs in B-flat minor, LaYam and Gam Ki Eilech.

Traditionally, B-flat minor is considered a “dark” key, in fact one of the darkest. Samuel Barber’s well-known Adagio for Strings (below) is in Bb-m, as is Chopin’s “Funeral March” (Piano Sonata No. 2). That’s what happens when a key has five flats in it.

Ishay typically favors less complex minor keys; some of his favorites are F-sharp minor (Tocho Ratzuf Ahavah, Miksha Achat Zahav, Matzil Oti Kol Yom) and B minor (at least 5 songs). It’s telling that he chose this rare, morose key for a song that’s clearly meant to be uplifting.

5/And combined with the ominous subbass beats, a first for him, what emerges is a soundscape whose key affect is fear. But that’s the point. The movement into the chorus is a movement of prayer, of total submission to the Unknowable that can only emerge from the darkest fear.

6/He didn’t say this in his FB post, but I’m wondering if the title of the song plays on the word corona, which means crown. As @jeremytibbetts1 tweeted, the Kabbalist R. Yehuda Ohad Torgueman has made a similar connection between coronavirus and the Divine sefirah of Keter. https://twitter.com/jeremytibbetts1/status/1224692377618698245

7/Another meaning of כתר, as @jorosenfeld has tweeted in the past, is waiting, as in Job 36:2 and Likutei Moharan 6:2. Ishay alludes to Messianic waiting with the last words, שמע ישראל ה אחד ושמו אחד, a simultaneous declaration of faith and prophetic hope. https://www.sefaria.org/Likutei_Moharan.6.2.4?with=all&lang=bi

8/Exile is strange in that one is trapped *in* the outside, in a boundless space without walls or separations between holy and mundane. According to the Alter Rebbe, the divine soul is in exile *within* the externality of the animal soul. Like a prisoner waiting for release.

9/So maybe Ishay is Midrashically comparing our quarantine, and our indefinite waiting to emerge from it, to our current exile. We are trapped on the inside/outside, unable to enter our holy places, even see the faces of our loved ones. “What do You want us to learn from this?”