40 | AUGUST 8 • 2024
to write the protest single
“Blood in My Hands.”
The following year, he
joined other artists on the
song “God Help Us Now”
about young Afghan women
suffering under the new
regime, and later he penned
“Can One Man Change the
World” about Ukrainian
President Volodymyr
Zelenskyy and his resistance
to the Russian invasion of his
country. Ondrasik performed
the song in Kyiv last July.
Ondrasik says that writing
the elegiac “OK” — in which
he declares, “This is a time
for choosing/This is a time
to mourn/The moral man
is losing/Forbidden, lost for
long” — “took a long time.
The tone had to be right. The
lyrics wrote themselves, but
the tone was critical.”
He listened to classical
funeral marches, Jewish
music and other sources,
eventually bringing in
cellist Dave Eggar to add an
additional texture.
“I needed the humanity. I
needed the pain, and adding
cello was key,” Ondrasik
explains. “I showed Dave a
couple pictures of the Nova
concert; ‘I know you don’t
want to see this; but look
what these people did.’ That’s
when he played what he did.
That’s the human pain, with
me telling the story. Like my
wife said, it’s not supposed to
be beautiful.
“I take no pleasure in
this,” Ondrasik adds. “I wish
I never had to write any of
these songs. To me, they’re
not political; they’re about
humanity. None of them
get played on the radio,
but they’re heard by tens of
millions of people and matter
to a lot of people. You try to
find ways where you can have
an impact and write when
you’re inspired to, or when
you’re angry or frustrated
and have something to say.
That’s kind of where I am
now.”
The music career is
continuing; Ondrasik has
been touring this year with
both his band and with a
strong ensemble he also
performs with. He says he’d
like to make another album,
too.
“Seeing the impact of the
[recent] songs has made me
a little more invigorated to
do it,” he says. “I’m trying
to build out some blocks [of
time] where I can do it and
do it the right way.”
He’s still trying to rally
other artists to support Israel
and the Jewish community;
“Ideally there’d be a kind of
Concert for New York to
bring people together and
express solidarity,” he says.
The spring trip to Israel
had a profound impact,
meanwhile, that’s led to
more engagement with
the community and even
some engagement with the
practices.
“I’m trying to practice my
own kind of Sabbath now,”
says Ondrasik, who describes
himself as more spiritual
than religious and has sung
at the odd simchah over the
years.
“I love the idea of putting
your phone down, putting
your computer down for 24
hours and being with family
and let the digital and crazy
world go away for a minute.
“It’s nothing really formal
— my wife laughs at me —
but I am trying to practice
that because I think it’s a
beautiful idea.”
ARTS&LIFE
MUSIC
YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT
Ondrasik sang his hit
“Superman” and his new
song “OK,” inspired by
the aftermath of the Oct.
7 attack on Israel.
continued from page 39
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