From Lennie Clark's Web Site:

عاللي جرى
Alli Garra

(What Happened to Me)

This page contains a translation into English of the lyrics to the song "Alli Garra". It was originally recorded in the 1950's or 1960's by Oulaya al-Tunisiya, whose name is sometimes spelled as Alia la Tunisia. This translation is based on the version recorded by the Syrian artist Asalah Nasri and Saber el Reba. Others who have recorded it include Wael Jassar and Adam. Alli Gara (What Happened to Me), in the 1970's Song Title in Arabic: عاللي جرى Lyricist: Mohsen Al-Khayyat Composer: Helmy Bakr Original Artist: Oulaya al-Tunisiya Another spelling for the song title is "3ali Garra". About Oulaya al-Tunisiya Oulaya al-Tunisiya (علية التونسية) started her artistic career at age 16. In 1968, Oum Kalthoum visited Tunisia to perform a concert, and while she was there Oulaya had an opportunity to sing in front of her. Oum Kalthoum was impressed with her voice, and suggested she come to Egypt. She enjoyed a successful career in Egypt and lived there 12 years before returning to Tunisia. In 1981, Oulaya married Hilmi Bakr, the Egyptian composer of this song who had nine wives over the course of his lifetime. He composed a number of the songs Oulaya performed. Unfortunately, "Alli Garra" didn't become famous until after her death when Asalah Nasri recorded it. Song lyrics are provided for educational purposes. If you like the song, please purchase either the album or a download from an authorized source.

Lyrics

Notes by Lennie Clark:

First there is an instrumental section baladi rhythm. Then it goes into wahda kebeer when the singing starts. I have put the syllables in bold where the beginning of each measure of the rhythm hits. In additon, if the first beat of a measure falls outside the lyrics, I have added the word beat in bold type.

Baladi

/ D * D * T A D * D * T A D * T * / D * D * T A D * D * T A D * T * /

For clarity I have written each measure with sixteen counts, the asterisk is a 1/16th rest. (The slash is used to connotate dividing line between measures, two measures being depicted.) Actually the rhythm has much more of a 4/4 feel.

Wahda Kebeer

("One is big" meaning the first beat of the measure is the only heavy beat.)

/ D * T A T A T * T A T A T * T * / D * T A T A T * T A T A T * T * /

Again, for clarity I have written each measure with sixteen counts, each asterisk is a 1/16th rest. (the Slash is used to connotate dividing line between measures, two measures being depicted.) actually the rhythm has much more of a 4/4 feel.

The first line starts after the beat.

In the transliteration below, a # is used to signify where a beat in the music occurs.

The rest of the song repeats some of the sections given above.

Where to Get Recordings of this Song

Artist: Asala and Saber CD Title: Alli Garra

Translations of
Asala Nasri's Songs on This Site

Other translations of songs performed by Asala Nasri on this web site include:

Acknowledgements

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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