Syria: A song of love and reproach, filmed in the darkness of power cuts, is very popular
“Oh Willie Willie” is a song of reproach, love and separation, but it is not only the words that contributed to its spread, but the video clip that was filmed in the dark due to the power outages for long hours a day in Syria.
Since it was uploaded to YouTube about a month ago, the band's song "Safar" has garnered more than five million views, and the band concluded the music video with a simple comment: "This video was made using all kinds of LEDs (solar-charged, energy-saving lamps) and batteries... True story".
For years, the Syrian government-controlled areas have been suffering from long hours of rationing due to the lack of fuel and gas needed to operate the generation plants.
The economic sanctions imposed on Syria prevent the regular arrival of oil ships.
The electricity crisis has worsened in the past months, with the hours of rationing reaching about 20 hours per day in some areas, after the years of war drained the energy and electricity sectors, with the most prominent oil and gas fields out of Damascus’s control on the one hand, and generation plants damaged in the battles on the other.
Private generators are only available on a very small scale because of their high cost, often in commercial establishments and restaurants, so most homes rely on batteries for lighting and possibly charging phones.
"The electricity comes for only one hour, or even less sometimes, while we were working for more than 10 hours a day," one of the band's founders, Shadi Safadi, told AFP.
Hence, the band did not find a solution but to give up electricity.
The video clip begins in a cramped, dark room, in which one of the band members lights a small lighter and then the band members appear one by one in the dark.
In the room, which is lit with decorative tapes and energy-saving LED lamps, Shadi sings, "Don't say about me my heart is hard and that it's stone... Don't say about my mind that I'm forgotten and abandoned."
Shadi explains: “We filmed the work in a small room of four meters, and it was very hot.”
He added, "Sometimes we were forced to stop filming and recording because of the low battery, so we had to dim the lights... Despite that, we enjoyed producing the song."
On YouTube, there were comments on the song, many of which talked about the video clip.
One of them wrote that the room “is similar in its details to the Syrians’ rooms that are illuminated by LEDs,” and another commented, “God willing, electricity will return to Syria… so let the next (video) clip be about water.”
Wafi al-Abbas, one of the band's members, says: "The song was done with love, and people certainly loved the words and music, but the audience also felt that there was something that he sensed through the video clip."
Although the "Safar" band was founded about 20 years ago, it is the first time that the audience interacts with it in such a large way.
Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news