Our first foray into Afghan music?…
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[6.50]
Brad Shoup: “Ahmad Zahir was what we listened to,” Darya says; he was 16 when the singer died in a car crash, an incident Zahir’s relatives blamed on the newly-ascendant communist government. Still, one can keep happiness amidst turmoil, and one can wish for moderation without coming off as smarmy. (It helps when you’re singing for a country blasted half to hell by another, then neglected while another country was getting blasted four-fifths to hell.) What this song wishes for is wrenching; what it wishes for in the silences, in the crevices of Darya’s wistful, haunted “oo,” is what you should listen for.
[8]
Anthony Easton: I have heard this in Toronto neighourhoods, and outside my local mosque in Montreal, and friends from London and New York have told me that it ends up playing outside of cabs. In the context of only knowing Afghanistan via trauma and diaspora, a song about hope instead of longing has some cachet. That this is a hit suggests that the world is wider than the Anglo-American cabal might allow, and more beautiful.
[8]
Patrick St. Michel: Not sure the music itself leaves much of an impression, but this bittersweet reflection on simpler times grows clearly political as the song moves forward, making his nostalgia all the more stinging.
[6]
Micha Cavaseno: I just had an older man tell me “Back in MY day…” for 5 minutes straight. I have relatives, bosses, teachers, mentors, the homeless guy on the bus I gave $5 to, and dozens of others to do that for me. I don’t need Farhad to join in.
[2]
Megan Harrington: Nostalgia is a poison and “Oo Ghaitaa” is full of lyrics that yearn for the past without any concept of how to improve the present. Darya pairs his regressive poetry with evocative guitar and stirring accordion. The song’s ache is completely real and without the ability to understand any of the lyrical nuance, it’s easy enough to apply “Oo Ghaitaa” as a salve to life’s more concrete losses.
[7]
Rebecca A. Gowns: A delightful swinging tune with a mesmerizing chorus and a fun bridge. The accordion is a love-it-or-hate-it touch, and I’m firmly in the “love it” camp. Apparently Farhad’s been an active performer since the ’80s, but I never heard him in my stepdad’s cassette collection of Arabic and Pashto music… nevertheless, it reminds me of him still, and of the happier times in-between the stretches of nonstop arguments with him as a teenager. Memories of his long phone conversations with his family back home; hookah smoke; his special rice recipe; it all comes back. I should try to piece his cassette collection together from memory. Until then, this song shall suffice.
[8]