17 May – You’re hiding, breaking my body

It’s good that many different genres of music make it to our favourite TV show. Could you imagine if all we got was, for example, Schlager? Schlager Schlager Schlager all the way. How dull. So it’s good the old ballad is out there too to give us that variety.

Today’s birthday girl שירי מימון/Shiri Maimon comes from a country that, it could be said, excels at a certain style with an upbeat tempo and lots of close-formed dancing. Shiri bucked that trend with a very classy ballad in Kyiv. Her song from 16 – yes, 16 – years ago is still popular as an antidote to the floor-filler. She finished fourth, and her placing was the high-point between Israel’s wins in 1998 and 2018. It goes to show that you don’t need to conform to your country’s typical style of music to succeed. A good song is always a good song.

Shiri is 40 today.

!יום הולדת שמח, שירי