Salim Bali heard the song Fog Elna Khel for the first time in a Syrian Arab Television broadcast in 1966, when the great Iraqi singer Naá al-Ghazali was hosted in a special TV program in Damascus. Initially, and as is the case with most Syrians, the homonymous nature of its title phrase led Bali to think that the words were “Fog el-Nakhel” ("High above the palm trees"), despite the fact that the remainder of the lyrics did not have much to do with palm trees. This belief persisted until 2006 when a musician friend informed him of the little known fact that it really is spelled Fog Elno Khel ("There above, I have an intimate friend"), which, in the Iraqi accent, is pronounced the same. |
