Matti Caspi - Songs in a Tomato Juice (Hed Arzi 1990)

The album “Songs in a Tomato Juice” which Caspi recorded in 1990, is consisted entirely of songs with humoristic music and lyrics, and skits. The album is an exception in Caspi’s work: for the first time (and the last, to this day) the emphasis is on the fun and humorous atmosphere. Alongside the songs there are short skits, which are also an innovation compared with Caspi’s former albums.

The theme song that opens the album (lyrics by Ehud Manor) explains it well:
“There are some serious works/ which require full concentration with headphones/ there are some genius works/ which made stylistic revolutions/ their contribution is unforgettable/ and their eternity is promised/ but it feels wrong to take them/ to work or to the shower”.

Another thing that makes the album unique, is the musical gestures towards the genres that have affected Matti. Some influences are shown in Caspi’s composing, but in “Songs in a Tomato Juice” the songs were intentionally written in certain genres. The album is sort of a collection of “Folk songs” - from the Italian influences in “Face Slap”, the French chanson in the theme song, the American funk in “Zutul”, the Balkan style in “Yalla Yalla”, the Russian songs in “Zeber Habezudadim”, and of course the strong Morroccan accent in the skit “Moris and the Pigeons”. Matti also chooses to refer to a number of old Israeli songs like “Sachki Sachki”, “We Face the Rising Sun”, and even Yonathan and Heiman’s “Beaches”.

The album was accompanied by an exceptional campaign where it was explained that Matti was quitting the music business and moving to boxing. Somehow no one was moved by these exceptional news, despite the obvious bruises on Matti’s face in the album’s cover art.

The album includes what has later become one of Matti’s most famous skits - “Moris and the Pigeons” (“Hanging and washing…”), which was originally broadcasted in 1977 on Galatz’s known program “Night Birds” of Dory Ben Zeev. The skit is Caspi’s version of a story from the play “Kriza” by Yehoshua Sobol.

Unusually, Caspi also participated in writing some of the lyrics in this album: “For many years I’ve had so many nonsense going on in my head, and who hasn’t? When someone is all alone by their self, they act like a fool and it’s perfectly natural. In front of the mirror, in the shower, or in the car. My daring, if you can call it like that, is to take that nonsense and bring it out in public. I’ve reached a level of nonsense that would make a person run away a kilometer from home, if they dared sing like that in the shower. The moment I decided to create the album, things just started flowing rapidly. The more whimsical the better it was”.

Participating in the album were Ganny Tamir, Shlomo Baraba, Eyal Gefen, Yossi Huri, Yair Nitzany, and Danny Robas. Matti: “I thought about what would be the best match radiophonically. According to that I gave them roles. We all sat at my house. Each one received a tape with songs I pre-recorded, and a role to learn by heart in the backing vocals field. The idea was that no one knew what the other’s role was. For example, Yossi Huri had to perform an Iraqi piece at the end of the song “Pardon”. You can hear laughter in the background in this album. It’s the other laughing spontaneously. I left everything there because I wanted the most live and fresh album there is. The recordings took four days, including mixing”.

The only musician who participated in the recording was Shmulick Bodgov, who played the electric guitar in “Zutul” and “Inquisition”.