The world we live in feels more and more fragmented with each passing day, there are so many images, sounds, people pushing and shoving for a place in the sun, too much information coming at us from all directions, and some days it just feels like it’s getting harder and harder to put the pieces together. Some days a song will come along that reminds me that puzzling it all out can feel good too, and I can look at all these mixed-up random pieces of life with hope. Hope that I will know how to find the places I want to be, the things I want to do in my life, and the people I want to be with – that is how I feel when I listen to Ronen Green’s music.
Puzzle, Ronen Green’s debut album, produced and arranged by Tamar Eisenman and recorded at Mitzlol Studios in Tel Aviv by Kobi Farhi and Yonatan Barak, features 12 songs, all written and composed by Ronen. I’ve been listening to the album for a while now, and it has been a starting point for many hours of pleasure and some thinking too. Ronen has a warm, intimate voice, listening to the album you feel like he is there with you in the room, singing and sharing his thoughts and feelings; it’s like being among friends.
These songs did not rise up from the urban angst and deadpan cynicism of the Tel Aviv scene, they’re coming from somewhere else, somewhere a bit off the main road, yet connected to deep roots. Ronen Green’s music reflects the folk tradition of singer/songwriter, and the protest tradition, but musically is composed with a contemporary feel, open to wider influences in rhythms and instrumentation; a diversity and complexity in which a more knowing, which is not to say more cynical, content reverberates. If the protest songs of the 60s and 70s talked about changing the world, as if that change was just a few chords away, these songs are written with the awareness that in today’s culture of mass media white noise and over-information, it’s hard to make your voice heard, and even harder to make an impact.
Talking About God, the first track on Puzzle, opens with a steady rhythm that always takes me with it, in tune with that greater rhythm – nature. Singing of the harmony of nature and the dissonance of our own position at once in and out of rhythm, part of the circle of life and always looking at it (and ourselves) from a distance. We who are no longer “young”, do not see rainbows as “magic,” and don’t need to “talk about God” to be drawn to the beauty that surrounds us. It’s a song grounded the here and now of this life. “The sun keeps shining on our heads” and this song keeps filling me with a good feeling.
Puzzle has a gentle bounce to it, and if I had to choose a favorite, it would be this song that resonates with the essence of a perspective that is at once knowing and loving. Like many of the songs on this album, it sounds simple at first, but the more you listen, the more you hear and comprehend. Looking at life from the vantage point of layer upon layer of experience, it’s a kind of game, maybe it’s not so much about winning, but about figuring things out in time… And, “if you get stuck, all you need is just a little luck.”
This recording of Puzzle is not from the album, but from another really wonderful project – KOL 2 & 5 (Every Monday and Thursday) at Mitzlol Studios, analog recordings (on tape) in one take… so vintage and so fine!
Several songs speak out against the problems of life, life in Israel where you are likely to be told to “exchange your guitar for a gun” and “the man” is up on the rooftop looking down on everyone else. From folk to rock and blues, they are all imbued with an underlying belief: “I know there’s something better than just pain and fear.”
What gives us hope? What keeps us going? Music, for sure, but also love. There are some really nice love songs here, from the indigo sound of My Baby, to the less conventional Rough Road, and the enchanting incantatory Pretty.
So many of these songs feel like they echo my own life and experiences in these crazy days and times: “Ride around town/Chasing our tail/Looking for a dime/and maybe we’ll be someone.” I think that in his musical journey, off the mainstream, Ronen Green has figured some things out that are good to know: “One of these days it’s gonna come/You will wake up in the morning/Look up at the sun and know/You’ve always been someone.” Listen to Ronen Green, he knows.
Follow Ronen Green’s page for updates on concerts and Puzzle is available on CD or digital download from the bandcamp site.
Next gigs: March 29th at “BaHatzer Shel Ofer” restaurant in Moshav Mata (not too far from Beit Shemesh); and April 22nd at Rothschild 12, Tel Aviv.
