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Lyrics
Let me be a tree inside your garden
Plum tree full of sweetness in your garden
Take my fruit abundant ripe and sweet
All I have is yours it's yours to keep
Let me be your apple tree in bloom
Branches full of shade beneath the moon
In my cooling shade you'll find your rest
Sit and dream beneath my branches blessed
If only all could be the way we dream
Turn our sorrows into joyful scenes
For all wishes to come true just try
Say this simple magic word Alevai
Let me be a tiny honey bee for you
All the honey in the world you'll see
For all wishes to come true just try
Say this simple word Alevai
If only all could be the way we dream
Turn our sorrows into joyful scenes
For all wishes to come true just try
Say this simple word Alevai
Behind the song
The song’s story
It began with one word
According to our release story, hearing Tamara Gverdtsiteli sing Alevai made Walter J. Kin fall in love with the word. Olga Anikina wrote a new Russian poem around it; he composed new music and adapted her words into English. This is a new song, not that earlier recording translated.
Our recording & notes
A wish carried between languages
Halevai (or alevai) is the word for ‘if only’ or ‘I wish.’ The Jewish English Lexicon records its life across Jewish languages and English. A single familiar word can carry an emotional inheritance without borrowing an earlier song's melody.
Jewish English Lexicon
Love offered as gifts
The singer offers fruit, shade and honey: everything given away to a beloved. Our recording pairs this generosity with klezmer-pop and Sephardic colors. We hear an echo of biblical garden imagery, while the poem and music remain the work of these contemporary creators.
Our recording & notes
About this recording
The release tells how hearing Tamara Gverdtsiteli sing an Alevai inspired a new song around the word itself. Olga Anikina wrote a Russian poem; Walter J. Kin composed original music and adapted her words into English.
A singer offers a beloved fruit, shade and honey. The arrangement is described as a klezmer pop ballad with Sephardic echoes: a quiet wish growing into a shared refrain.
Why we consider this song Jewish or Jewish-themed
We hear its Jewish connection in alevai, the Hebrew and Yiddish expression for ‘if only,’ and in the klezmer and Sephardic colors described for this recording.
For us, the garden, apple tree and honey also recall the love imagery of the Song of Songs. That is our reading of the images, not a claim that this lyric translates a biblical text.
Credits & source
- Music, arrangement and production
- Walter J. Kin (RIGLI)
- Russian lyrics
- Olga Anikina
- English words
- Walter J. Kin, adapted from Anikina’s Russian
- Performance
- Riglis Band
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