Oud, my beloved… a song that is thirty years old and still sets my heart on fire every time its name breathes in the air

Yemen

Yamanat

Abdul Wahab Qatran

Unexpectedly, life offered me this afternoon a surprise similar to those moments that destiny only grants to those who are exhausted by the days, whose hearts are weighed down by sorrows, and who then want to pat him on the shoulder… a warm session in the company of the artist whose voice has lived in my fresh memory for thirty years: Abdul Ghafour Al-Shamiri.

About five months ago, we were sitting with my friend Mustafa Rajeh, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, Ali Al Dhabibi, Abdul Karim Al Sharabi and others, flipping through songs on YouTube while the heart beat between seasons of nostalgia. As soon as her immortal song “Oud, O Most Precious of Loves” came on, our souls stopped making noise and that old magic descended on us…the magic we experienced in the 90s in Yemen, when art was the most beautiful thing in life.

Mustafa sings with us, then turns around, surprised by the intensity of the joy that overcomes me. I said to him, smiling with the pain of the memory:

“This sad song snatches me from the confines of my life and takes me back to Hamadan… to a young man who tills the land, plants quinces, apples and grapes, and drives the bus loaded with crates of grapes to the slaughterhouse market, with the tape recorder playing the voice of Abdul Ghafour… and turns the road between Hamadan and Sana’a into a festival of hope.”

Ali Al-Dubaibi intervened saying that in Raymah they loved her too, and Ahmed Abdel-Rahman confirmed that they had heard her strongly in Sharaab and that Muhammad Al-Ala’i had informed him of her presence in Hajjah… so we all agreed:

This was the tendency of all Yemen, when all Yemen was one heart, when art was master of all divisions.

Three days ago, I played the song again with the voice of Ahmed Abdel Rahman. He said to me laughing:

“Perhaps Abdul Ghafour will soon honor us.”

So I told him:

“If he comes… I’ll bring your bag, even if you crawl. Invite me, don’t support me.”

I didn’t know that time had a surprise in store for me that only happens once in a lifetime.

Today Ahmed called me and said:

“Get ready…your great artist will carry the bag.”

He stipulated – an unusual fact – that I come alone, “without disturbance!” I laughed and said: Yes.

I ate breakfast, got dressed, carried branches of Al-Hamdani khat and left the house standing. Along the way, the good times came back to invade me step by step…

I remembered the fields of Hamedan, my sweat on the ground, and the grape clusters of the capital that I carry on the bus to Sana’a, and the road that sang to me… “Come back, my dearest beloved” and “Every time I come, I knock at the door, your false promise will meet me.”

I sang as I walked…I still remember the words as I remember the details of my youth.

When I looked at Ahmad’s house, I saw him…

He was there, with his calm face, his good laugh, the soul like his songs.

She shouted, without regard to any protocol:

“Is it possible that you have an oud, my beloved among us today?!”

Oh, I wish you knew how much I cried on Eid night.

I walked up to him, shook his hand warmly, and he hugged me, kissed my head and laughed wholeheartedly…a laugh that contained the goodness of all Yemen.

We sat around him and told him about the era of the song, how it invaded the Yemeni countryside from Shara’ab to Hamedan to Raymah and Hajjah, and how its voice accompanied farmers, students, travelers and lovers’ dreams.

We found him to be a human being… before being an artist.

Simple, spontaneous, light, laughing as if the world was still going well.

It’s as if we’ve known him for thirty years.

When he felt our love for him and our memory of Yemen with him, his face became more beautiful. He told us about the days of his stay in Jeddah, where he sang “Oud, O Most Precious of Beloveds” for the first time.

I told him:

“Yemen is great with its people… united by art, literature, poetry and song… before treacherous politicians divided it.”

And time stopped.

Then he took the oud and sang… he sang this song to which our hearts grew:

Come back, my dearest beloved ones

The oud is enough torment for me.

My life is gone and you are gone

And the branch of youth burned.

Come back up to two nights

Go back and wipe away two tears.

Come back and see how I’m doing

I shed tears of sorrow.

Whoever saw me blamed me

And he cried and complained about me.

Come back empty-handed

Oud, enough alienation and debt.

You’ve been away from me for so long

Have you forgotten everything that happened?

Is it true, my darling?

Have you changed your schedule?

Where is your sincerity and where?

The love of lovers is dead.

With the one who made you beautiful for me

By the Prophet, by the saints

Don’t leave me in doubt

Don’t be confused by the “yaa”.

Turn over and wipe with hands

Tears hurt her cheeks.

Oh, I wish you knew

On the evening of Eid, how much I cried

How sadness comforted me

Afterwards they said I had forgotten.

And the tears, how much they blame

Your smile in both photos.

All my neighbors and my family

They wear new clothes for Eid

And I’m in the arms of my chest

Waiting for the postman.

Maybe in two words

They reassured me: Where are you?

Every time they say it happens

I said, of course, he’s my lover

My despair turns to hope

And joy spreads like a libation.

But I was happy for two moments

And the tears flow.

We sang with him until our applause rose above the cell walls, and his voice took us back to years before, to the days of innocence, to Yemen, which sounded more like songs than politics.

I asked him:

“Why so much sadness in the song?

He said, smiling sadly:

“Because we performed it… Me and its narrator, the virginal poet, while we were abroad in Jeddah.”

He then sang “You’ve Gone So Far, We’re Not With You Anymore” and then other songs that made the time pass slowly and beautifully.

Until the nap seemed to him like a night from a time that had not returned.

He recorded the songs and posted some of them on his friend Mustafa Rajeh’s page.

The sound resonated in the mouth… and deep within us.

We applauded, we rejoiced, and thirty years passed in a single moment.

It was one of those sessions that never happens again…

A session of God’s days.

A day that gave me back my youth, and which proved to me that only art can bring a person back to themselves… even for an hour.

The meal is over…but not his mind.

It was a day like a blessing, like a gift from heaven… an irreplaceable day.

Yemen