The song “A Long Night” in Arabic, Hebrew and English, how did that come together?
I always wanted to do a song in Arabic, Hebrew and English. It was always a goal of mine but it was not accessible to me because of my facility with the languages and just because I didn’t feel compelled at that time to bring it into reality. I was sitting in Washington, D.C. at my piano and my buddy called me up in New Rochelle and was like “I got this studio xxx, I got it for x amount of time, come up and let’s do some music together. I’m going to film some documentary in Israel in the West Bank and I need some music to show the people there.” I was like “Alright, I’ll come up and do a song but I want it to be this kind of song and I want it to be in different languages.” I didn’t know what the precise concept would be yet. So he agreed, and I went up for a weekend and we knocked out the song. In order to write the lyrics I had to collaborate closely, just in that weekend, with a Palestinian friend of mine in Washington and an Israeli friend of mine in Israel. I was on the phone with
