The song 'The pain of fighters' by the Israeli singer Idan Amedi talked about his experience as a fighter during his military service in combat engineering in Israel. In his early days as a singer, he was on the T.V show X-Factor (2010) and performed this song for the first time. He wrote and composed the song by himself. At the end of the season the song was released to numerous radio stations and reached a number one in the hit parade.
I chose this song because behind his words there is a hidden pain. The song is the way that he can express his feelings outside and share his deep pain. Inside him there is a screaming voice that want to tell us what really happened in the past. The song was written as a letter to a girl that he broke up with. He wrote it during the night when he came back home for a vacation and realized the meaning of life in different aspects. How much pain he had seen and all the friends that he had already lost. He held himself up in his room and wrote her a letter that explained everything. The song comes from a real place inside him. It's designed to encourage other soldiers who have lost their friends during the war and the pain they experienced. They usually keep everything inside them and prefer not to talk about what happened, but the pain is still there and they are carrying it for the rest of their lives. All those boys who chose to serve in the army and wanted to protect their country, are away from home because they want us to live in peace. They are taking the risk to loosing their own life in order to save ours. For those who still live and survive the wars come back with trauma. Amedi as a former soldier, talked about his past, all the blood that he saw and his friends who were killed next to him. Whenever he came back home for vacation, he understood what he was feeling. The hurt and pain of carrying all the trauma from the past. He realized that he is different and life is a gift because he is still alive, loosing his best friends makes him feel grief and guilt.
The song opens with him expressing his loneliness; "First evening of being alone, I sit and write you a letter about all the things that happened..". First of all he wanted to share what really happened to him, which means he wanted to gives other people who have experienced similar trauma the ability to do so when they are ready to. Life continues, yes it is hard but he was in the same position and he knows the same pain all those boys are carrying. The message is to help them, they need to get out of that in their own time. They need to understand that with all the pain they feel for those they've lost is still real, but instead of dwelling on the pain they need to start their life again. The song ends with him still thinking about life. From another aspect, with all the pain that he still has, he cannot sleep, he has nightmares and pictures of the war stuck in his head. The silence has meaning: to let all the thoughts out and be able to start their life again.
I like to hear this song whenever there is an attack in my country and soldiers are killed. I cannot forget that they are all there for the purpose of protecting others by using their own bodies. I support all of them and respect them very much. Every year, whenever we have the memorial day for fallen soldiers this song is one the most played. People feel the pain that soldiers have to go through, all the bad memories being engraved in their hearts. As a nation, our purpose of defending our country is possible because we are all together and can all connect with each other, especially through songs like this. People who didn't lose anyone are able to feel the same pain as families who did. Every memorial day this song connects us all, it leads us to think about our friends and families that have lost soldiers in the war.
Personally this song touches my hurt because I have lost friends who have studied with me in school. It's hard to contain the pain. Those boys who just joined to the army are all young usually 18-24 years old, they weren't able to experience anything in their life other than war and they are often taken to soon without the chance to continue our generation.
Idan Amedi's songs are usually quite songs that talk about the pain and the experience from his military service. Most of them are sad as I said, it's about the loss of people and the stories behind the hard situations that he experienced. We can learn from the meaning of the words in the songs what really happened to him at that time. He keeps inside him the pain and slowly starts to express himself with through his songs. The meaning of the words are very deep, translated in hebrew the lyrics make more sense.
"Idan Amedi" (album name) debuted on September 5, 2011. The album was named when the gold album sold over 20 thousand copies. There are 11 songs on the album. The album cover is very minimal, it is of Idan's face without a smile. His face shows us that he keeps something inside him and wants to tell us through his songs.
Very similar to other music videos, the actions in the video provide what the song is about, what the story is behind the lyrics. The message from the writer is clearly illustrated through the video. People can understand his meaning better when they watch the video. In my opinion, the deeper meaning beneath the song can be more clear. For this song we have two different clips, both of them start with Idan singing and playing his guitar. We can see different soldiers during the clip, with some in wheelchairs as a consequence of the war. Based on the same idea that he wrote the song to his girlfriend. The difference in the clips is that one of them we can actually see the places that the soldiers served and the obstacles they are faced with. The other one is more about him and the girlfriend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCzN7Y_qiY8&list=RDXCzN7Y_qiY8
