About Me
Meir Ariel was born in Kibutz Mishmarot. As a little boy, he played the recorder, the the accordion and the guitar, but he saw his future in film making. In the army, he joined the paratroopers and treated singing and writing as hobbies. His first songs was made for occasions where the kibutz's band, The Mishmaron, was performing. In the "Six Days" War, Ariel served in a paratroopers division in Jerusalem, and in a soldieres convention that was held at the end of the war, he sang on the melody of the song "Jerusalem of Gold" by Naomi Shemer new lyrics that he wrote: Jerusalem of Steel. Many strong comments were made because of his version, and he received the nickname "The singing paratrooper". Benni Amadurski produced him an EP which included "Jerusalem of Steel" and more songs that Ariel wrote and sang: "Bad Business", "Love Night" and "Bablath". Ariel became a wanted lyricist, espcially along Shalom Hanoch's Melodies. In the meanwhile, Ariel felt that he can't get away from the "singing paratrooper" image, so he went on a mission by the Kibutz to the USA, where he hoped he could foregt the music and focus on film making, but he fell in love with American music and espcially Bob Dylan, so he started to write songs in a new way such as "Tikva", "Erol" and "End of the Orange Season". When he returned to Israel in 1970, he temporarily left the Kibutz and his family (in the meanwhile, he and his wife Tirza had a boy and a girl). and tried to settle in Tel-Aviv. He gave Artistic advices to Tiki Dayan (and wrote for her the song "Independent in the Field"), worked as production assistant in "Castle" movies, in "Arieli" advertising office and such. The 40 years celebrations of Kibutz Mishmarot and Dori Ben Ze'ev's encouragement returned him into writing. In the "Yom Kipur" War Ariel served at the Suez canal and wrote songs which he recorded in 1974, with arranging and playing by Mati Kaspi: "Going Lazy", "A Quiet Night for Our Forces at Suez Canal" and "Tikva". Others also recorded some of his songs: Tamuz recorded "End of the Orange Season" and "Going Lazy", Sky recorded "Achziv 76", Natan Cohen recorded "The Vacation on the Roof", Oshik Levi recorded "Line A.B.C", and Shalom Hanoch recorded "The Strike". From the end of 1977 until the middle of 1978, he recorded "Songs of Spinning and Tripping and Falling", with production and arrangements by Shalom Hanoch. The Record, that came out in 1979, was an important milestone in the original Israeli creation of the 70's. Ariel sang-recited, with music that was influenced by country, american rock and folk, and espcially Bob Dylan. Anti choruses filled with thoughts and emotions in a unique delivering and a special language, some sort of scripts filled with key sentences about his life and creation, among them are "Pain Song", "Tikva", "Erol", "Terminal Lominalt" and more. After the release of "Songs of...", Ariel took off for a solo tour with his guitar, espcially in small places such as "The Cave" in Jaffa, "Hoven House" in Tel-Aviv and espcially "The Alley" in Jaffa. He also performed that whole time in Kibutzim and in front of soldiers, and all that as a side job for his main job at that time, as the economy secretary of Kibutz Mishmarot.
In 1984 he released the album "...And Eyes Wide Open" which included "The Moral Department (Mexican Legend)", "Goldberg Fields" and "A Quiet Night for our Forces At Suez Canal" which was updated to the first Lebanon war.In 1987, Ariel created the songs that'll become the album "Yellow Blues" in a hard period of his life, when he took care of his father in his last days. The songs were recorded with arrangements and production by Alona Torel, amongst them are: "The Snake's Slough", "Company in the Line (Or By Incident)", "Song for the Whole Family" and "Stolen Song" 'which it's lyrics was written by King Solomon and can be found in "Song of Songs".In 1989, Ariel recorded the EP "We Got Past Pharaoh, We'll Get Past That". In this year, "The Snake's Slough", which was covered by Eran Tzur, was used as the theme song of the movie "Shuru" by Shabi Gabizon.In 1993, Ariel recorded "Seeds of Summer" which was produced by Shalom Hanoch. The album has a more blues-oriented sound than the rest of Ariel albums. The album cover was made by his daughter, Shiraz.In 1996, he released his toughest and saddest album to date, "Coal Draws", which deals with mortality, man against nature and against God. It's a very intimate album, Ariel recorded it almost entirely by himself.In 1997, Ariel released "Bernard & Louise", which deals with a long time married couple's relationship.In July 1999 Meir died at the hospital, probably because of a misdiagnosed infection.In the year 2000, Ariel's family released "I'm Thankeful", which is made up of home recordings of Meir that was renovated by Moshe Levi, Shalom Hanoch and Dori Ben Ze'ev.
