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Among the chants and songs that spread in the world during the Second World War is the Russian folk song “Julyushka Poli” or the Russian “Anthem of the Horsemen,” whose words were written by Victor Gusev and composed by the Russian composer Lev Knepper in 1934 in his Fourth Symphony, and then became widely played by the Red Army Music Ensemble. The Soviet Union, as a kind of enthusiastic propaganda under the name “Red March Knights,” soon became famous worldwide after it was re-copied and converted into rock and pop music. Perhaps what made it more popular was the inclusion of the melody in the American comedy film “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming.” Filmed and produced in California in 1966 and directed by Norman Joyson, it won a Golden Globe Award for Best Musical Comedy.
The lyrics of the song are in Russian:
easy easy
sprawling field
Heroes riding the field
Hey heroes of the red army
girls cry
Girls today are miserable
Loved ones are leaving for a long time
Their loved ones are leaving the army
We only see gray clouds
The enemy’s hatred begins in the woods
The enemy hated such a cloud…etc.
In 1974, the Rahbani brothers composed the same Russian melody on Arabic words, and Fayrouz sang it under the title “They were my love” in the play “Lulu,” which tells the story of a girl named Lulu who was accused of killing her five-year-old nephew and sentenced to life imprisonment. About 15 years inside the prison, it was found that she was innocent and that her nephew killed himself by mistake with a gun, so she was released to decide to take revenge on all those who testified against her unjustly. The words of the turquoise song, which the Arabs have believed for many years to be one of the purely Rahabna creations, say:
They were, my love, snow, neighing, and horses
Roar at the door of the night
Their voices were taking us a walk
Aiming for range and fire
I swear, my love
Don’t forget my love
When do you hear this song?
Think of me, my love
In the middle of this song, the Rahabneh put the music for the song “Katyusha”, another Russian folk song from the time of World War II (words by Mikhail Isakovsky and composed by Matvey Planter) sung for the first time by the popular Russian singer Lydia Ruslanova in 1938. Hanna Al-Sukran”, which Fayrouz sang in 1973 from their words.
Hence, it was said that the melody of the songs “Kanwa Ya Habibi” and “Hana Al-Sukran” is the clearest example of artistic quotations made by the Rahbanah, although they were also accused of quoting the melody of the song “Ya Anna, I, Me and You” by the legendary Austrian musician Mozart in his Symphony No. 40 This is not to mention that their son Ziad Rahbani in the eighties chose the “Concerto de Arnguet” from 1939, which is considered the most famous song of the blind Spanish musician “Joaquin Rodrigo”, and used it in the melody of the song “Beirut Min Qalbi Salam” sung by his mother, Fayrouz, from the words of Joseph Harb. It is the song that spread a lot in 2020 in the wake of the Beirut port explosions.
However, this does not, of course, diminish the status and creativity of the Rahbani brothers in the world of high-end music and the beautiful word, as evidenced by the fact that they presented the Arab listener with the angelic voice of Fairuz hundreds of immortal works. The famous Frenchman, Jean-Francois Michael, sang it in the same tune in 1973 under the name Coupable, meaning the comet.