Yehuda Poliker (album 5) - For your blue eyes

In 1992, Yehuda Poliker released his 5th solo album, and which is mostly instrumental. Indeed, only tracks 2  15 are songs with lyrics, and all the other 13 tracks are instrumental - though not devoid of background vocals. 

Yehuda who was working on another album, shelved it to compose what would become this fifth album ; it is a requiem to his nephew, Kobi Poliker, who was killed during an argument with a member of his military unit. 


The song Cain from his sixth album deals with this incident again, and adresses that other soldier, using biblical Cain as a metaphor because - for those who aren't familiar with that myth, Cain killed his brother.

Kobi's photo appears on For your blue eyes' cover, as this entire record is dedicated to him. The instrumental pieces have a lot of pain and melancholy, especially track 5 For your blue eyes.

Track 12 is the first song, called Nad Ned, or Swings, about complementary of natural opposites, as if they were swinging up and down... 
These opposites include 
A  person flying/another bending down 
One shouts/another is silent
Someone celebrating/another is lonely 
Someone hovers/another has fan 
(how your magic faded from morning to night, I'll search for another magic myself)
Someone is strong/another is weak 
One loves/ another is betrayed
Someone dies/another is born
Someone runs/another stands still 

These lyrics depict the pain of having to stand still after his nephew's death, evidently... 

Track 15, Zinguala marks the return of Yaakov Gilaad, who had worked with Poliker for some years before, and who translates once more a Greek song into Hebrew.

From what I can gather, this one is actually about someone's mother, but I'm not totally sure, so I'll research this a bit more because it became a very popular song that he performs live quite often.

Yehuda composed all the melodies and plays quite a few of the instruments, and leaves us sometimes pondering about some of the pieces' notes or decision to use a children's choir - which I can somewhat understand but think it would have been more powerful without those additional vocals. 

For your blue eyes is mostly therefore nearly perfect, but not quite there ; I don't listen to it as often, maybe also because it lacks the beauty of Yehuda's poetry on 13 songs... 

Nonetheless, it serves its emotional purpose and deserves a good 9/10 - for your blue eyes, Kobi.

Tracks (translated titles) 

1. Jacob's ladder
2. They were dancing barefoot
3. Death wall
4. Children of marble garden
5. For your blue eyes
6. Coal roses
7. Table for two
8. How far is far
9. The bus of the dreams
10. Goodbye my friend
11. Smoke rings
12. Swings
13. The holy & the innocent
14. Jacob's dream
15. Aingualla

Instruments on this CD :

Accordion, Baglama, Bagpipes, Bass, Bouzouki,  Drums, Electric Piano, Guitar, Keyboard, Percussion, Piano, Saxophone, Woodwinds, Zurna.