The Mac Air Song: Yael Naim, New Soul

Yael Naim is a Sephardic singer-songwriter whose Parisian parents moved when she was a child to Tel Aviv, and so it came to pass that she became a soloist in the Israeli Defense Forces Orchestra. Following that, she soon moved back to Paris, found a little place in an arrondissement and began working up a secret triple-distillery for beauty. Like her fellow new Parisienne Leslie Feist, she rocket-blossomed and is now powering an Apple commercial. Yael recorded an elemental ditty in her studio apartment, called it New Soul and published it in an anthology titled Yael Naim, an album with almost no backing when it was released in late 2007. Yet the collection was savored and devoured by the muses and the furies, and it didn't take Apple long to find the track, which has shot up to #9 on this week's US Billboard chart.

The song lyrics are below, but a note about Apple, which is playing a big part in making it a hit. People have asked me to describe the difference between Apple and Microsoft, since I've worked with and against both. "Apple is Hitler, Microsoft is Stalin," is one short way to explain, and sometimes against my bashful discretion I've gone with that. (What would seem to be the most facetious or sarcastic of descriptors can be metaphorically apt, spiritually spot-on.) We all come into this world as new users do into unknown operating systems, we're forced to make a choice; between the two, I'd have to go for a world designed by Apple.

It may at times seem peevish, small, paranoid, and subject to the snobbish whims of a martinet who has the airs of a French runway designer--because it is. That's why it hires people for their aesthetic passions, people who love beauty. That's why a Yael Naim song is backing its ads; an Apple product exec was in France chilling out on vacation before the launch last Fall, heard New Soul play at a friend's apartment (probably ganja-steeped) near the Champs d'Elysees, and said, "That totally captures what we're trying with the Air. We need it!" And so they went and got it, fast. (By comparison, Microsoft is ill-equipped to do lifestyle. Hearing the same thing, a Microsoft exec would've probably said, "Wow. Great song. I should go to the effort to send it to Steve Ballmer so he can send it on to marketing.") Apple fully understands how the currents of music connect through the deepest waters, and how the currents have to be just right.

The air of the artistic, that belief in the power of beauty is why, instead of my former component-by-component assembled PCs, we have 7 Apple devices of various size and shape in the house. They may be less than fully inter-operable, they may have made me give up games, and they may be the hardware equivalent of Italian suede shoes...but they do strive to be great. Not just good enough for everybody. They want to deliver all the dashingly effortless points of interface and style. And more often than not, they deliver, just like now. Here are the lyrics to New Soul (and you'll have to click on the vid to catch the full effect, the lyrics alone don't do it):

I'm a new soul, I came to this strange world
hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take.
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear,
finding my self making every possible mistake!

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

I'm a young soul, in this very strange world
hoping I could learn a bit 'bout what is true and fake.
But why all this hate, try to com-mune-iii-cate--
Finding trust and love is not always easy to make!

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

This is a happy end, 'cause you don't understand
everything you have done, why's everything so wrong?
This is a happy end, come and give me your hand
I'll take you far away...!

I'm a new soul, I came to this strange world
hoping I could learn a bit 'bout how to give and take.
But since I came here, felt the joy and the fear
finding my self making every possible mistake!

La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la