Direct your gaze over to the links sidebar on the right, ladies and gentlemen, and you'll see there's a new selection playing in the Diskoteka bubble-action Wurlitzer today. (See here for a description of the previous selection, Ugly Girl -- it's not the parody version of Aqua's Barbie Girl.)

If you patronized U.S. dance clubs in the mid-'90s, or if you're European, you probably remember Swedish satire/pop sensations Army of Lovers for their big slice of operatic techno sacrilege, Crucified. Far more obscure on this side of the Atlantic was the completely deranged Israelism, based on the wheezy Hebrew School singalong staple Hevenu Shalom Aleichem. The lyrics are chock full of Jew-baiting stereotypes, but as Army of Lovers member Jean-Pierre Barda (himself a Red Sea Pedestrian) explained in an interview, it's all in good fun.

Besides, as my Russian friend Sasha commented the first time I heard this song playing at a gay Moscow disco, where a packed dance floor chanted along phonetically to the pump-your-fist-in-the-air Hebrew chorus, ''Anti-Semitic how? It makes me want to kneel before a Jewish man...''

P.S. If you've actually gone through the trouble of downloading the song and listening to it, please take a moment to fill out a Comment form and drop it into the wire basket to your right before leaving. Thanks!

posted by Throbert | 10/05/2002 12:26:00 PM |

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