Hi
folks,
I did some research,
and I think I have the solution to who "Om Kassoum" is. I believe it's an
alternate spelling of "Oum Kalsoum", who was a very popular Arabic singer and
poetess from Egypt.
from http://digiboek.50megs.com/oumkalsoum/
"Her
name also is written as Umm Kalthum, Umm Kulthum, Oum Kalthum, Um Kalthoum, Umm
Kulthume, Oum Kulthum, Oum Kalthoum, Um Kolthoum, Oum Kulthume, Oum Kolthoum, Om
Kalsoum, Um Kalsoum, Oom Koolsum, Umm Kalsoum or Omm Kalsoum, but we prefer Oum
Kalsoum.
Oum Kalsoum was born
at the beginning of this century and died in 1975. She was unquestionably the
most gifted singer and musician of this century in the Middle East. She was
continuously popular for over 50 years and her songs are still played nightly on
any number of Arabic language radio stations. She was the "voice of Egypt". More
than twentyfive years after her death, her devoted audience, drawn from all
strata of Arab society, still numbers in the millions."
Here's a website
where they translate to English one of her love songs called "You Are My
Life".
http://www.shira.net/inte-omri.htm
In
my humble opinion, the lyrics are quite passionate, and are probably a good
indicator of what her other poetry is like. Seems also very Yello-ish to
use such powerful lyrics as well, in my opinion. I guess it's a matter of
trying to figure out which poem she sang that Yello borrowed, and finally
matching them...
I was able to listen
to audio samples of both persons listed above, and neither are singing like the
voice on "Le Secret Farida", which means that *neither* are probably the
voice. Yello's Farida tends to rasp out the song, not sung with
a full-bodied voice. Also, the difficulty in identifying any women who can
sing and go by the name "Farida" makes this a pretty daunting task, as there are
very many of them. Maybe a certain someone named "Jonas" who is working on
a book and has (hopefully) an upcoming interview with a certain someone named
"Boris" can ask the man who Farida is, and where they met, etc? ;)
Just a thought...
All of this is in my
guesstimation, of course, although I believe the Oum Kalsoum connection is most
probably correct.
Also, another final
thought - someone mentioned how some of the phrases sound French, other lyrics
sound Arabic. Perhaps, would this be a pointer to a singer from
Morocco? Have either of the Yello gents spent time in
Morocco?
Cheers,
Rob