Authentic sun, love and the Nile Written by Hossam Badrawi

Authentic sun, love and the Nile
Written by
Hossam Badrawi
Yesterday, while listening to the song Shams Al-Aseel, influenced by the splendor of the words, the beauty of the melody, and the dazzling performance of Mrs. Umm Kulthum, I was encouraged to record my feelings and feelings and send them to my friend, the genius musician Rajeh Daoud, to add and obtain the reflections of Shams Al-Aseel on his conscience.
The Nile River, especially in Mansoura, where I was born and lived the first ten years of my life, has a special flavor. We lived in a villa on the shore of the Nile, among a group of ten villas, in front of Shagaret al-Durr Garden, and our house had a small garden that was covered by flood waters at its peak, so that its waters met the walls of the villa.
The Nile in front of us was wide, and I had never seen anything like its breadth except in Aswan. The movement of the boats, the sight of the castles, the movement of the water that flows easily and carries them along, and the boatmen focusing their long oars on the wall of our house so that they do not collide with it, have remained stuck in my mind until now, as if they were an artistic painting.
The river, with its beauty, must have created a place inside me. It romanticized my subconscious mind and emerged years later in my love for inspiring words, the search for beauty, and somehow connecting the fabric of serenity together.
I listened to the song Shams Al-Aseel in the quiet of the night and closed my eyes as if I was listening to it for the first time… and lost myself in the words of Bayram Al-Tunisi and the music composed by Riad Al-Sunbati.
I believe that Umm Kulthum was crowned “Shams Al Aseel” at the pinnacle of Arabic singing, and she is one of the masterpieces of the classics of music that carried the spirit of Egypt with all its charm, appeal, and humanity in an authentic oriental melody that connects man to place, merges love with nature, and creates a genius tapestry that paints a complete picture, as if we see with the eye what the ear hears. From overlapping descriptions between the river, the sun, the breeze and lovers..
Bayram chose to address the Nile as an introduction to his emotional theme, knowing that it is a symbol of life and stability. He immersed himself in describing it and describing the feelings of loved ones in a mixture that I have never seen in Arabic poetry. The composer took time to embody these natural and human images to weave with the poet and the creativity of the performance a multi-colored and dimensional palette that gives the listener spaces. Vast of imagination and invites contemplation.
I read it to a specialist, and I will go back to my friend Rajeh Daoud, the great musician, to confirm that the poetic text of Shams al-Asil is devoid of any repeated stanzas, and that the composer used two lines from the first stanza as a doctrine that is repeated between the poetic stanzas, thus creating a dramatic line that made this doctrine the distinctive melody of the entire song.
That is, the structure of the song was written without a doctrine, that is, without repeating any verses, and therefore the audible doctrine was invented by the composer.
The composer added another innovation that demonstrates experience and high craftsmanship by recalling the call word “O Neil” and adding it to the last verses of the doctrine he chose. It did not appear at the end of any verse in the written text except once in the first verse. The narratives say that this was an addition by the woman with her poetic sense.
Shams Al-Aseel is a truly unique experience. If you listen to this melody while you are outside Egypt, you will have a strong feeling that it is not just a passing song. It addresses your feelings and nostalgia for your homeland with all the meanings of the homeland… place and time, people and memories, wishes and dreams. And if you are not Egyptian, perhaps you would like to go to Egypt one day to see what happens when the afternoon sun reflects on the Nile.
The song begins with verses that paint a picture, and then begins to describe feelings and mix the Nile with feelings of love and loved ones
The afternoon sun has set
Palm wicker, Neil
A masterpiece and an imaginative one
On your page, beautiful
The coupé ends with the refrain created by the composer:
And the flute on the beach sang
And the feet lean towards the blowing of the air (and it is repeated on the blowing of the air)
When Ali passes by
Oh Neil
Yaaaaaaaaaannel
The song takes us into another area with miraculous words, a unique melody, and an unparalleled performance:
“Oh Neil, me and the one I love
We liken you to your class
Because you softened our hearts when your love softened
They described us in love
He is your friend
We don’t have anything to do with you or us
In sweetness, he is like Neil
Oh Neil
“Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan”
What beauty and sweetness this is as she sings: “Neither we nor you, there is no match for sweetness, Neil.”
Before ending with the refrain created by the composer and performer:
“”
Umm Kulthum continues her wonderful performance, Shadia:
My love, Neil, and I have fulfilled our wishes
Where passion anchors our anchors
And if the night grows longer and longer, our nights become shorter
And the one who lost his passion cried and had a long night
And the flute on the beach sang
And the feet lean on the blowing of the air
When Ali passes by
My love, Neil, and I have fulfilled our wishes…
What’s this wonder
The poet is creative in his words and the melody, which must be described as professional, and Umm Kulthum changes the tune while closing it. “A place that anchors passion…it anchors our anchors.”
We do not know whether it is passion or passion.
The song ends with:
Me and my beloved, Neil, are absent from conscience
The moon rises for us and sets as if it had never happened
Two nights around us we hear the curlew laughing
Oh Neil, oh Neil
And the flute on the beach sang
And the feet lean on the blowing of the air
When Ali passes by
We started in the evening sun, describing a magical moment at the end of the day, and we ended in the song with the moon that rose and set, and with the voice of the curlew in a performance. I advise you to re-listen to it because the listener will not differentiate between the real voice of the curlew and the voice of Umm Kulthum the curlew.
We started at the end of the day in the afternoon until the end of the night in the absence of Qumra, on a journey of love in which the song combined humanity, feelings, the Nile, its purity, the breeze’s leaf, and its whims.