After an absence of nearly five years, the Egyptian singer Angham has returned to the spotlight with a bang with her new album “Tegy Nassib,” which contains 12 songs that all revolve around feelings of love. Although the societal circumstances in Egypt and the Arab world allow a singer of Angham’s stature and history to present a song that goes beyond that narrow emotional space, she played within a safe space that was guaranteed to her, as if she came from a parallel world without economic, political, or social crises.
The same thing happened in the melodies, whose atmosphere was repeated, as the listener could simply recall melodies that appeared in her previous works.
Although Angham’s new album featured a number of composers and poets, including Tarek Madkour, Mahmoud El-Khayami, Hala El-Zayat, Amir Taaima, and Ehab Abdel Wahed, it was only distinguished by the participation of actor Akram Hosny in two songs in the album, which are “Tegy Nesib” and “Khalik Ma’ha”. However, the funny thing is that Hosny’s song found an objective response in a subsequent song in the same album, which is the song “Mowafaqa”, whose lyrics were written by Mustafa Hadouta.
Public Relationships Without Secrets
The two songs seem to form a story that sums up the contents of the entire album. Akram Hosny’s song “Tegy Nesib,” which is the album’s main song, is spoken by one of the two parties in the relationship who raises the idea of separation, justifying it with boredom and many problems, and suggesting that others be informed that what happened was not by the will of either party, but rather what God has destined for them.
Let’s get it by fate.. Then we say we’re not meant for each other
And between us, there is distance.. you disappear and I disappear.. you come and we get lost.. you come.. we both sell
Let’s hang ourselves.. Who is suffocating? Who is suffocating?
Let’s see everyone
Others occupy a large space in the relationship, so separation will not be justified unless “everyone witnesses” it and considers it “fate” and not the fault of either party.
Angham and Akram begin to narrate the reasons for the separation, as if she is standing in front of “everyone” to witness.
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The chances of separation increase every day between us
Until the moment of agreement.. While I said year by year
Boredom is unbearable, hope has taken a piece of us
Our distance is more comfortable for us, our hatred is clear in our eyes
Boredom is unbearable, hope has taken a piece of us
Our distance is more comfortable for us, our hatred is clear in our eyes
Come on, let’s leave
Despite the convincing reasons for the separation, the poet Mustafa Hadouta responds with the song “Agreement” in the same album, demanding the return of rights before the separation, saying:
Ok.. I’ll leave you and you’ll leave me.. and we’ll put everything back where it belongs
Give my personality back its essence and my life back its security
There are things that are broken inside me.. you can’t afford them
Ok.. I’ll leave you and you’ll leave me.. and I’ll pay everything I owe
I will bring back your extinguished soul…all your psychological problems
Justice is that if we leave each other, we will return to our normal lives.
Perhaps separation as a last resort in romantic relationships is a violent behavior, but what is more violent than that is the impossible demand that each person return to the way they were before the relationship. The two songs highlight that desperate turn in relationships that have become public, and almost without secrets.
repeated sins
In the song “Betamel Hagat,” Angham poses questions that are appropriate for a midlife crisis, even if they are closer to the questions of someone who is involved in a job he does not like, which is something that calls for optimism in an album brimming with private feelings between a man and a woman, but the lyrics quickly dismiss this possibility.
We do things… things that are not like us
It doesn’t suit us…and it remains in our past
All that happened is our fault
And we cry for hours… tears of regret
In just two days, we will forget our regrets
We change our words and repeat what happened
The song seems like a private speech to oneself in an attempt to review life’s accounts, but the surprise comes:
And he left love.. but after a pill
It hurts our hearts… because we loved him
As for the song “It Wasn’t Time,” the listener finds himself in a state of strange desire to hate the truth, and an unjustified love for living in illusion, as that girl prefers to live in a big lie rather than have the other party in the relationship tell her the truth about his feelings:
I don’t say why he betrayed me and sold me out.. I say I wish he would continue deceiving me
Is it reasonable that he left my choice.. between pain and submission?
What kind of person is he? He made me forget to give him my dues.
calm before the storm
Almost halfway through the album “Tegy Nseeb”, Angham returns to a temporary state of peace, during which the listener can rest from betrayals, broken promises, deception and tears, as she presents the song “Al-Qulub Asrar” (The Hearts Have Secrets) in which she says:
Hearts are secrets
You are my love and my secret
Hug me when I’m scared
And I hide in it
There is nothing like you, my love
عندي بالعالم ده كله واللي فيه
aggression
The song “Kan Bari'” confirms that the previous space of peace was only for gathering weapons and preparing for a “battle” in which vocabulary was used that could lead its owner to the courts if directed at a specific person. Some of its lyrics say in describing the lover:
It’s not justice
Suddenly he forgets me with meanness
Suddenly he embarrasses me with his unmanly behavior
It’s not justice
He drew a halo around himself.
But I found him opportunistic and he was my arrival
It was in my opinion
God’s love for me sold it
He was showing his courage by being afraid for me.
With his excessive emotions, affection and tenderness
He was hiding his cruelty and ugliness from me
The shocking vocabulary indicates the depth of the wound caused by the betrayed lover, but it also confirms the stability of aggression as a negative societal value, whether within the framework of the social relationship or after its end.
In the song “What Should I Tell You?”, Angham repeats the desire to torture oneself and cling to the ruins of a past love, saying:
Oh, the picture of someone who was life to me
Oh, my embrace of thorns, I am unable to live without it
Oh, what a sin and how hard it is for me to repent
Oh, it’s an illusion and I can’t get over it
I wish my days would wait
To forget you
The talk is yours, neighbor.
But she returns again, to present a song that is harsh in its lyrics, and in its social status, as she appears as a girl talking to her friend in a loud voice so that the lover sitting nearby can hear, and under the title “Be quiet” she says:
Shut up, we’ve grown up, understood and studied. If you’ve achieved your goal, you won’t achieve our goal.
Shut up.. Didn’t we do it and may you do it too? We understand.. Now that we have experience, we know what we don’t need.
The world has changed us and you have made us feel too much for you.. And from today on, our separation has become our third
Shut up, we’ve grown up, understood and studied. If you’ve achieved your goal, you won’t achieve our goal.
Check with me on your accounts.. in a way that suits you.. I don’t have a place in your life as usual in any place
I will determine my place and inform you of my decision. I will not move away or live except by my own choice.
Once again, another song confirms the emergence of aggression, ferocity, and the desire to cause pain instead of love and tenderness in a love relationship.
The song “What’s the News” raises a lot of concern for the singer, who is famous for her diligence in searching for new things in music and lyrics, as she presents in it the same meaning that she presented in more than one song before, as she says:
There is no new news about him
Sure, there is, but they tell me there isn’t yet.
I asked his acquaintances and friends who were around him.
Forget me, why did you forget me?
He remembers me, why doesn’t he tell me?
These are words that necessarily evoke the atmosphere of the song “He Asked About Me” from the album “He Didn’t Mention My Name,” and they say:
He didn’t mention me, he didn’t say anything, he didn’t want to tell me anything
Love is not easy to forget yet
He asked me, he asked me, what, what?
He asked me about his words and not his intentions
But don’t tell him you asked about him
He didn’t mention me
The album puts fans of old Angham singing in a state of enjoyment of a voice that has always accompanied them in their childhood and youth, and the graceful melodies, which exude melancholy, give them some of the pleasure that most of them do not find in light of daily life that witnesses harsh economic conditions, and this is mostly reflected in the lover’s budget that will not allow for a quiet session “in the far, quiet corner in the same place in the club.”
The new generations of Angham’s fans may find in the spaces of clear frankness between the two lovers in the lyrics of the album’s songs an echo of the character that distinguished her from other previous generations, but in light of the anxiety and sadness that hangs over her as a result of what she receives – and some follow – through the news bulletins and watches on screens of news, she finds nothing but a sad, tragic symphony, while Angham stands in her distant, quiet corner from which she launched her first album in 1988.
