War and tragedy have historically inspired some of the world’s most iconic works of art, ranging from literature and paintings to sculpture and music. In regard to the last category, the themes of the Oct. 7 massacre, the subsequent Israel-Hamas War, and the plight of the hostages were the inspiration for A Little Something, an album released by Jerusalem Post Senior Editor David Brinn.
Consisting of 11 songs that were written over the course of the past two years, the album is Brinn’s second and is the fulfillment of a lifelong passion for music.
“For me, music is a creative outlet, besides writing and besides being focused on the news, and so it enables me to explore that other area where I have somewhat of an amateur, semiprofessional aptitude,” Brinn explained.
For Brinn, music has been important to him since childhood.
“My musical inspirations go back to when I was a child,” he said, citing The Beatles’ historic 1964 performance on The Ed Sullivan Show as a landmark moment for him.
“The Beatles wrote the most concise, memorable, best songs of my lifetime,” he said.
However, Brinn draws his musical inspiration from a variety of sources, including, “All the British Invasion bands, such as The Rolling Stones and The Kinks,” he elaborated. “I have always been attracted to songwriters. I don’t really care about guitar solos or long improvisational things, although I love the Grateful Dead, but that’s an aberration. Mainly it’s the song, the melody, the hook, the lyrics. To me, that’s what makes a song great.”
But while Brinn had taken part in a number of bands and performances, it took something else to push him to record albums: his family.
“I’ve always played music throughout my life, just for fun for myself, and I’ve been in various bands for short stints. It’s a lifeblood for me. But for my 60th birthday, my family bought me this little home recording studio, and that changed everything,” he recounted, referring to his home studio as his Batcave.
“I could spend hours recording melodies and different tracks, editing them and erasing them and starting again. And that sort of propelled me to writing more songs.”
This led Brinn into a cycle. The more he wrote, the more he recorded. And the more he recorded, the more he wrote.
Ultimately, that led to his first album, King for a Day. His debut album, consisting mostly of pop rock songs with no particular theme, is something he is proud of, but he also admits that he was still trying to figure out his direction.
“I wrote around 20 or 30 songs, and after putting the first one out, I figured, okay, I got that out of my system,” he said before shaking his head, having clearly not gotten it out of his system.
“This time, I took more care with the production and the editing. There were a lot of bum notes and shaky rhythms on the first album, and this time I think I got rid of all of them. It’s on a much more professional level, even though I wouldn’t call it professional.”
A theme-heavy album
Still, Brinn wears his musical inspirations on his sleeve, even in this more theme-heavy album.
“The other tracks just reflect my love, my lifelong love, of rock & roll and old-fashioned garage rock and very no-frills guitar, bass and drums, with good hooks and melodies and harmonies, and trying to make a song that people want to hum and sing along to and then go back to,” he said.
While he did most of the music recording himself, Brinn outsourced for help on certain parts of the album.
“My son Koby is an accomplished guitarist. He actually did a number of guitar solos, which are beyond me,” he said. “And because I know my voice is not exceptional or not even adequate, I invited a number of other people to sing some of the songs.”
Also pitching in was Brinn’s other son, Matan, who worked on the production side, helping give the songs their crisp and professional sound.
“Having two of my children involved with me on this project was extremely gratifying, and proof to me that I didn’t waste their childhoods making them listen to the music I liked when we were driving in the car,” Brinn joked.
THE ALBUM was preceded by a single he released in May 2024 titled “Rimon’s Song.” The song focuses on the images of Kibbutz Nirim resident Rimon Kirsht Buchshtav, 36, who was released from Hamas captivity in Gaza on November 28 as part of a temporary ceasefire deal brokered by Qatar and the United States between Hamas and Israel.
“She became like a national symbol for her defiance, when she got out of the Red Cross van and stared down her Hamas captor,” Brinn explained.
Many of the other songs have their own powerful meanings and inspiration.
The opening track, “Blue Majestic Skies,” is a catchy rock tune that brings to mind hope and happiness.
“The song was written from the point of view of a hostage who’s been released and seeing freedom and walking outside and seeing the sky and being free,” Brinn explained, noting that it was one of the few songs he didn’t write the music for. Rather, it was composed by his longtime friend Joe Brian, a professional musician. “It’s dedicated to [freed hostage] Emily Damari because she’s been so effervescent in her thirst for life since she’s been released. I actually sent it to her and received a positive comment from her about it.”
Another track on the album, “Instead,” was one of the only ones for which Brinn didn’t write the lyrics. They come from a poem written by Rabbi Hannah Yerushalmi. This song is a much more somber track than the previous one, being about archaeologists finding an ancient coin in the ground, with the narrator wishing they had found a hostage instead.
“Those are the two polar opposite points of the album, like a released hostage and the hostages that are still being held,” Brinn explained.
But not all the songs on the album are related to the war. One of them, “Wake Up, Sunshine,” has a more personal story.
“I have a good friend who’s going through cancer treatment, and he’s been in rough shape. I spent an evening with him in the hospital. I stayed overnight because he needed people over a two-week period,” Brinn explained. “I had a hard time falling asleep because it was a hospital room and noisy, and I got this melody in my head, and I stayed up all night going over it. All of a sudden, some words came to me, and it was more like a prayer for his well-being.
“I was afraid to get up in the middle of the night to record it so I wouldn’t forget it because I didn’t want to wake him up. I figured, if it’s good enough I’ll remember it in the morning.
“In the morning, I remembered most of it, so I quickly jotted it down, humming the melody to myself. It’s one of the songs on the album, and it means a lot to me because it is a prayer for my friend to get well.”
David Brinn’s new album, A Little Something, is available on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon.