From Lennie Clark's Web Site:

Eina El-Layali
(Where Did the Good Nights Go?)

This page contains a translation into English of the lyrics to the classic song "Eina el-Layali", which was sung by Asmahan, the sister of Farid al-Atrache. Sometimes the song title is spelled as "Eina Ellayali".

Lyrics

Note from Shira: In this song, the liver is referenced as being where love resides. This sometimes occurs in Middle Eastern poetry, including song lyrics. See the article "The Liver in Egyptian Song and Language" for information about why songs sometimes reference the liver.

Where did the good nights go?
I wish I did not have to cry after them
Those nights came like a shadow and pleased me
But they did not stay
An eye glance sent a spear to my liver and caused pain
The heart is destroyed
Tears from my eyes running
Goddess of sadness, save my body

Where to Get Recordings of this Song

		Artist: Asmahan CD Title: Asmahan V.3 (Archives Des Annees 30)
		Artist: Various CD Title: Cairo Road: Great Songs of the Arab World

Acknowledgements

About the Translator

Adel Abdallah is an Egyptian who resides in New Orleans, Louisiana. If you are traveling to that great city, he invites you to stop by the Cafe Picasso, located at 3401 Chartres (on the corner of Chartres and Desire, in the Bywater). The cafe serves delicious Middle Eastern food, and offers shiisha smoking. They are open daily except for Sundays, from 10 A.M. to 6 P.M. (Deliveries until 10 P.M.) The phone number is (504) 948-6881.

The translation summary was done by Adel at Lennie Clark's request. Muchisimas gracias to Kruz, (whose Morocco to India ethnic boutique, located in the historic French Quarter, is not-to-be-missed) for suggesting Adel as a translator.

About the Source

This article originally appeared on Lennie Clark's web site, "Arabic Song Translations." Lennie created this web site in 2002 as a response to discussion on the Internet regarding incidents of dancers who performed inappropriate sensual dances to religious music. Lennie's web site resided on a free web hosting service known as Geocities. When the planned October 2009 closure of the Geocities web hosting service was announced, Lennie and Shira agreed to move the contents of Lennie's site to Shira.net. To explore all the articles and song translations that once appeared on Lennie's Geocities site, visit Lennie's portal page here on Shira.net.

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