- 08:00
I didn’t choose my name, and I didn’t choose to love Fayrouz. In our home, loving Fayrouz was a heritage, a love passed down like a family secret. My name, borrowed from one of her songs—as my father proudly reminded me—bound me to her in a way I couldn’t escape. And I knew it from the very start, from the moment I could speak: “I am Yara, el jadayalha sho2ér», which means, “I am Yara, the girl with blond braids.”
From a very young age, my father wrapped me in her work. He gave me her records and films as others might give toys or dolls. Every morning, her voice rocked me on the way to school, my father at the wheel, me nibbling on my generously oiled labneh sandwich. And you can imagine that receiving a collection of Fayrouz’s plays for Christmas, at eight years old, wasn’t exactly a dream gift… yet for my father, it was a gesture almost sacred.
He passed this love on to me as one passes down a Bible from one generation to the next, an inheritance of sacred, irrevocable word. I had, in truth, always loved Fayrouz without really knowing why.
And one Sunday, while we were at the mountains with the family, just before lunch, in that suspended moment when everyone waits quietly, I pulled my father aside.
I made him sit on the old yellow sofa, the one he never would part with, no matter how much my mother and I begged. He lit a cigarette, and I asked him THE question:
“Dad, tell me really…why do you like Fayrouz”?
“Yara, it’s normal. Fayrouz is an icon with an angelic voice!” he said at first, as if trying to dodge the question. But seeing my insistence, he changed his mind. He lifted his eyes, paused, and in a deeper voice confided:
“If we were happy, we listened to Fayrouz. If we were sad, in love, nostalgic, anxious… we listened to Fayrouz.”
He went on, his gaze drifting into memory:
“Fayrouz was the pine trees of my village. She was my childhood home. I still remember my mother, cleaning while singing at the top of her lungs, the radio blasting.”
And then, unexpectedly, my father’s lips began to tremble. Tears welled in his eyes. He tried to hold them back, failed, glanced at me, covered his face, and laughed nervously. He tried to hide it, but I could see the tears slipping past his hand.
The older he gets, the easier it is for a tear to fall. When I was little, I had never seen him cry. Now, he cries often. I hold mine back. I swallow, grit my teeth. I do not cry. In our family, tears do not come easily.
My father pulled himself together and went on, as if nothing had happened: “When I was a teenager, I listened to Fayrouz with my first love. She’s tied to all the craziness of my youth.”
He continued: “The first time I saw her in concert, I was sixteen. It was in Damascus. Completely on a whim. I was with my friends in the village square, as usual, and the oldest one said, “Do you want to go see Fayrouz in Damascus?” We all jumped into a car.
He paused, crushed his cigarette in an old ashtray. “Damascus was packed when we arrived. We couldn’t get in, but we listened to everything from outside. And when we came back, we lied to everyone: ‘We were in the front row!’”
He looked at me, smiled, and wiped his tears away with the back of his sleeve. “Fayrouz was the only steady thing we held onto. Every concert, every show cost me an arm… but I went. Always.” he said.
Then his voice grew heavier. “Fayrouz… she’s also the war. We fled our village with just a few suitcases. But she stayed with us. Even on the front lines. As soon as the shooting stopped, someone would say, ‘Hey, put on the Fayrouz tape.’ We all sang together. It was a moment of joy amidst the darkness.”
Suddenly, we hear “Bhebbak ya Lebnan ya watani bhebbak” (I love you, Lebanon, my country, I love you). My mother hums softly a Fayrouz song from the time of the Lebanese civil war.
She had slipped in behind us without our noticing and had probably been listening to our conversation for some time. My father, without breaking his story, sang along with her. I joined them: “Bshmalak, bjnoubak, bsaḥlak bhebbak” (I love you in your North, in your South, in your plains).
Once our little concert was over, she returned to the kitchen, careful to leave the door slightly ajar behind her.
My father lit another cigarette. Yet he had sworn he would quit. I was about to remind him, then held back. After all, it was I who had just rekindled the fire of his memories.
“But why did you feel you had to pass all this on to me?” I dared ask.
His eyes filled with tears again. He cleared his throat.
“What could I have taught you that was more precious? Her poetry, her culture, her performances, history, her angelic voice… These are things that stay,” he said. I nodded. He went on.
“Do you remember the piano we used as a junk holder for fifteen years? I paid fifteen hundred dollars for it. I carried it on the car roof when you were eight. You told me the day before, ‘I want to play Fayrouz’s songs on a piano.’ You gave up a few days later… but I tried, didn’t I?” he said, bursting into laughter.
“Yes, Baba, you kept trying… even going so far as to name me after one of her songs.”
He smiled and continued softly. “When your mother was pregnant, she was looking for names. But I already knew. When I was young, I attended a lecture by Said Akl. He spoke about the song he had written for Fayrouz, about this name. For him, Yara meant beauty, love, tenderness. And that day, I promised myself: if I had a daughter, she would be called Yara” he said.
Then he stopped and gave me a mischievous look. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the lullaby I used to sing to you?”
He immediately began to hum the words of Fayrouz’s lullaby, replacing, as he had before, her daughter Rima’s name with mine:
« Yalla tnam, yalla tnam
La dbaḥla ṭayr el-ḥamam
Rouḥ ya ḥamam la tsaddéʼ
Biḍḥak aa Yara la tnam… »
Twenty-six years later, nothing has changed. Neither his voice, nor the rhythm, nor the gentleness. My eyes are full of tears. His too. “Yes, I remember, Baba… thank you…” I whispered, my throat tight.
“Ya ahla Yara…” (You’re welcome, Yara…), he smiled, getting up to light the barbecue. He closed the parenthesis.
I don’t know why I didn’t tell him how much I loved him in that moment. But the two of us never really knew how to speak those words. I would say them later, on the way home. With a Fayrouz song. With my father, sharing her is how we say: I love you…
That day, I realized my father was not simply passing Fayrouz’s culture on to me. Through it, he was quietly sharing his own story: his childhood, his youth, his village, his loves, his wild impulses, his doubts, his wounds… Today, I know that if I love Fayrouz, it is also because I love, deeply, the man who passed his love for her on to me.”
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