I love Iggy Pop. And I loved Ofra Haza. I had no idea, until a commenter informed me tonight, that they had done a duet together. Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni birth who enjoyed enormous professional success but had a rather sad personal life. She contracted HIV from her husband and died of AIDS-related pneumonia within a couple of years of her marriage. The disclosure of the cause of her death shocked the Israeli public, for whom she had been an icon of chastity and purity.
Friday, November 22, 2013
Daw Da Hiya
I love Iggy Pop. And I loved Ofra Haza. I had no idea, until a commenter informed me tonight, that they had done a duet together. Ofra Haza was an Israeli singer of Yemeni birth who enjoyed enormous professional success but had a rather sad personal life. She contracted HIV from her husband and died of AIDS-related pneumonia within a couple of years of her marriage. The disclosure of the cause of her death shocked the Israeli public, for whom she had been an icon of chastity and purity.
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Glad to hear I inspired a post, though a bit bummed to learn what happened to Ofra Haza (it's always sobering to find out that someone you assumed was still alive has actually been a long time dead). If anything, I would've expected Iggy Pop to have been the first of those two individuals to pass away - I hear he's lived a pretty wild life.
ReplyDeleteRe duets that Iggy's been involved with, I too was quite a fan of Candy, which you mentioned elsewhere and which I first heard around the same time as Daw Da Hiya. It seemed an interesting change of pace for him, given that I'd heard he'd developed quite the reputation for outrageous on-stage behaviour (which included acts of self-mutilation!).
Yes, Iggy, along with Elizabeth Barrett Browning, are proof that a life long opiate addiction does not necessarily shorten one's life (or productivity, for that matter).
ReplyDeleteI've heard that, for all their notoriety, the opiates are among the safest of the illicit drugs to take over a prolonged period, with the caveats that they should be reasonably pure (ie not cut to shit with harmful adulterants) and that one should avoid dangerous means of administering them (such as using dirty needles). I've also heard that they're not quite as addictive as is commonly portrayed, nor are they as traumatic to withdraw from, or easy to OD on (at least, not when they're taken on their own, and not in combination with some other depressant). When I first learnt all this, way back in the '90s, I was actually tempted to give heroin a try, though eventually chickened out of that idea. All things considered, maybe that was still for the best.
DeleteIf you like Ofra Haza, you may like Sophie Milman-
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdOR_72bGQs
She also lived in Israel. She is one of my major contemporary influences.