Like Golden, Weill employed the expression “Only in America” ironically to expose the fake promise of equality as it pertained to Black Americans. The title was borrowed from the 1958 best-seller by the Charlotte, North Carolina, Jewish journalist Harry Golden, which lampooned both Southern segregation and Northern liberal hypocrisy. In this case, the lines were all written by American Jews - musically, by the stellar Brill Building composers Barry Mann and Mike Stoller and lyrically, by their respective songwriting partners Cynthia Weill and Jerry Leiber. Sometimes you have to read between the lines to detect the Jewish traces in American popular music. A fantasy? For sure, but it’s made more affecting when we discover that “She was a Jewish girl I fell in love with her.” Ariel offered by the standards of the day an adoring and appreciative, if objectified, image of Jewish femininity. Ariel is a post-Sixties hippie and a free spirit while he dresses up in his best blue jeans, she wears “a peasant blouse with nothing underneath.” He greets her with “Hi” and she responds with, “Yeah, I guess I am.” Following a bout of the munchies, the evening climaxes, literally, as they make love in front of the TV “to bombs bursting in air” (in the days when stations signed off at night with the “Star Spangled Banner”). Dean Friedman details a date between the singer and a girl he spotted one day at the Paramus Park shopping mall, “collecting quarters in a paper cup” for the socialist radio station WBAI. And the rest more than lives up to this promising start. “Way on the other side of the Hudson, deep in the bosom of suburbia….” To launch a pop song with that scene-setting description is pure genius. We could easily have populated the entire list with Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen songs, so many of which touch on Jewishness that entire books have been written about them, so we tried to limit those entries in the spirit of inclusiveness. We then culled the replies down to a somewhat manageable list of 150, with annotations and links. We got back from them an astonishing list of 300 songs in all, as diverse as the contributors themselves, not all of whom are Jewish – at least we don’t think so we didn’t ask. We then sent out invitations to a couple dozen writers, musicians, and writer/musicians, asking them to share their lists and thoughts about their favorite rock songs that address Jewish culture, ideas, themes, history, or religion. You can find the whole list and accompanying essays here.Īfter Rolling Stone magazine published its list of the 500 Greatest Albums last September, we started asking ourselves what are the greatest Jewish songs of the rock era? We began drawing up lists of our own, but soon realized that were we to be serious about it, this was a task that required input from a larger cohort. What was your favorite song in the new Netflix movie? Let us know in the comments.Inspired in part by all the Jewish artists on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Songs, the Forward decided it was time to rank the best Jewish pop songs of all time.

Where songs are available, we’ve put together a Spotify tracklist for you below so you can take these songs wherever you go. Breakfast For Dinner – Winnetka Bowling League.Party Of A Lifetime – Pitbull and Play-N Skillz.Cloud 9 – Beach Bunny featuring Tegan and Sara.Past Life – Arkells featuring Cold War Kids.Rock And Roll, Hoochie Koo – Rick Derringer.I Love It – Icona Pop featuring Charli XCX.Now let’s dig into the 37 other songs that feature in the comedy’s soundtrack, including big pop hits, dance tracks, and indie rock. Yamate most recently worked with Netflix on Do Revenge.Īnother original song created exclusively for the movie was Outside from 3VN with the track written by Gregory Byers, James Cooper, and Christian Taylor.įull Track List for Netflix’s You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah The duo were announced to be attached to the project in May 2023.Įste, as you may know, makes up one-third of the rock band HAIM and has contributed the music to several high-profile movies, including Licorice Pizza. The original soundtrack for the movie was put together by two composers bought on for the project, Este Haim and Amanda Yamate. Original Soundtrack for Netflix’s You Are So Not Invited to My Bat MitzvahĪs well as a huge track list of licensed songs (see that below), the movie also features a score of 20 original songs too. The movie was added to the service globally on August 25th, 2023.

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