Why this tune?
This week’s tune is another daily project in the January song-a-day challenge organized by Kat and Sarah from Songwriting For Music Educators. This is a revised and extended version of “Pay the Band,” which I wrote first in 2024. It’s another in my Torah Tunes series, inspired in this case by a phrase in Parashat Ki Teizei (Dvarim / Deuteronomy 24).
G-d commands the people to “pay out the wages due on the same day, before the sun sets, for the worker is needy and urgently depends on it.” The song is a musician’s interpretation of this quite sensible provision, including a milder version of the rest of the verse “else a cry to G-d will be issued against you and you will incur guilt.”
Please follow my progress on Instagram to hear the rest of this month’s creations.
Oren Levine, jazz pianist and songwriter 