British-based Catholic electro-pop duo Ooberfuse have partnered with Palestinian Christian musicians to produce an Easter song to help struggling families in Gaza.
Dying Son features Charlie Rishmawi and Miguel Khair. The three-minute music video features insets of photographs of grieving mothers. The lyrics, sung by Cherrie Anderson of Ooberfuse, tell of a mother witnessing her son dying, including the chorus:
“O Lord, why did this happen to me? O Lord, I still love my enemies, love my enemies, love my enemies.”
Hal St John of Ooberfuse said: “A natural response to a life cut prematurely short is to seek reprisals, to implore with every fibre of one's being "Why did this happen to me?" Counter intuitively, against the base instinct to seek revenge, the song finds forgiveness in the midst of the grief and the red mist demanding retribution.”
Anderson, a non-executive director of The Tablet, added: “This Easter season provides a parallel narrative to the recent events that have been unfolding in the Holy Land. The quest for retribution and the relentless cycle of hatred and violence must be broken if peace is to return to the Holy Land.”
A lament sung by Miguel Khair overlays Anderson’s voice during the song, which he accompanies on percussion, to the sound of Charlie Rishmawi playing the oud. Rishmawi said: “In the last months we witnessed the full horrors of modern warfare in which the sophistication of modern technology is used to destroy the defenceless on an industrial scale.”
Both musicians travelled from Bethlehem to Jordan to film the song. The final shot of the video shows the sun setting over Jericho and Jerusalem.
Proceeds from the song will be given to families in Gaza and the West Bank via Friends of the Holy Land, a UK-based charity with an office in Bethlehem.
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