MGMT’s Weekend Wars

Mic check mic check, echad shtaim one two:

What it is, y’all!  I’m Margaret from Asheville, North Carolina  (yes I’m a Jewess named Margaret and yes the tribe exists in the mountains of NC!)  I’m mega thrilled to be a new edition to Shemspeed’s rad, multifaceted Jewish voice.

For my maiden entry, I wanted to point out a sweet and oddly familiar musical riff laced neatly in the track, “Weekend Wars”  by MGMT and a possible inspiration source.  If you don’t know the psychedelic electric-y sounds of MGMT, do yourself a solid and get to know them.  Really good music.  And as for the track Weekend Wars, check minute 2:12.  What song does that remind you of?  It took me a minute so I’ll be fair and give you one, also.

So, I’m thinking totally 100%  Erev Shel Shoshanim.  As a kid, my mom used to sing that song while she tucked my sister and I into bed.  Hearing it chai years later in Weekend Wars, I experienced a sort of musical exorsism.  It was a reunion with a sequence of notes and feelings, that I hadn’t considered in years.  As my friend Bess would say, a shehecheyanu moment, no doubt.

Perhaps Ben Goldwasser, the Jewish member of the two-man group, also had a soft spot for Erev Shel Shoshanim and knew the harmonious sing-songy lullaby would fit in nicely with the more digital, driving sounds of the rest of the track.   Or, maybe just maybe, he threw in a subtle shout-out to MGMT’s yidishkite listeners and an invitation to remember the melodies of our mothers.

– Margaret Teich

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