this week’s obsession: amir ve’ben “tel aviv is Me and You”

Amir VeBen (that’s “Amir & Ben” in English) is an Israeli pop duo that I first learned about when I’d asked around for current Israeli artists and songs to share with my 7th and 8th grade students. The song “Tel Aviv is Me and You” came out in mid-2020 (what I still think of as “mid-pandemic” despite that fact that almost two years later we’re still “mid-pandemic”) and is firmly in the pop/Top 40 genre. The song also features two other artists, Jane Bordeaux and Avichai Naftali.

The song thoroughly transports me to a calm and relaxed place — maybe a shady chair on the beach on a hot summer day, a cold bottle of water and some doritos at hand, and the taste of salt lingering on my lips from the ocean. The arrangement builds the song up so nicely, adding a nice touch of percussion and synths to keep the song moving forward and to add variety since the chord progression basically never changes. In fact, it’s precisely that it never feels stale despite the consistent chord progression that impresses me.

It’s a well-constructed song too, the way the chorus leads in with a quick “az tavo eilai” (“so come to me”) and we get two solid beats after the chorus hits before the lyrics come in, a little moment of anticipation that keeps me hooked.