From Lennie Clark's Web Site:

Sahertou Minhou el-Layali
(Stay Up Late Nights)

This page contains a translation into English of the lyrics to the song "Sahertou Minhou el-Layali", which was sung by Soumaya Baalbaki.

The singer's name is sometimes spelled as "Soomya Balbak" or "Sumaya Baalbek".

The song title is sometimes spelled as "Sahirtou Minhou El Layali", "Sahertou Minhou Layali", or "Sehertu Mehur Ellyalli".

Lyrics

I stayed up late nights, what do I have to do with love?
If my over left, I'm not empty, my heart flooded with love
Like a butterfly, I do not care, love is my existence
A heart without love is like a body without a soul
Do you see my lover, beautiful like a deer
God gives him beauty, everybody feels for us
Love is my existence, and love is my destruction
A heart without love is like a body without a soul

Where to Get Recordings of this Song

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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