I loved writing about A ba ni bi, Israel’s Eurovision song from 1977 that was a fixture in American Jewish summer camps in the late 70s and early 80s. My mom just sent me this fascinating article about Push the Button, the Eurovision entry from 2007. Back in June I spent a fevered afternoon watching a zillion Eurovision videos on YouTube — God, they are abysmal yet addictive. Like Hostess Twinkies. The only Israeli song that actually stopped me short from the last 30 years was Push the Button — it was so DIFFERENT from everything else, so aware of its own lunacy. No schmaltz. Not a love song. It is not spangly and smiley or calf-eyed and yearn-y. It has snarky references to past Israeli Eurovision entries, fer chrissake! It sounds a bit like Gogol Bordello with a random Gorillaz-esque hip-hop interlude halfway through. It is so obviously NOT a winning entry, I couldn’t understand why Israel chose it. This article casts some light on the song and the story behind it.

And this is why I have a blog, by the way. I love this kind of stuff.