The Sufi prophecy song

September 17, 2015 4:58 PM

The Spooky Men's Chorale, an Australian male vocal group, have a song, Ba'hari Ghibb, which is described as a 13th century Sufi prophecy.
posted by Samarium (24 comments total)

I'm embarrassed by how long it took for me to get the joke.
posted by KingEdRa at 5:10 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

This made me laugh really hard.
posted by lumpenprole at 5:14 PM on September 17, 2015

Nice find!
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 5:27 PM on September 17, 2015

Blessed be the Spooky lads... Hilarious, terrifying, and utterly mental.
posted by prismatic7 at 5:33 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

that was pure genius
posted by janey47 at 5:34 PM on September 17, 2015

I'm both pleased that I guessed the joke and at the quality of the joke presented. Good stuff.
posted by Going To Maine at 6:00 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

That was nicely abstract and very well done.
posted by doctor_negative at 6:04 PM on September 17, 2015

I am profoundly confused.
posted by bracems at 6:45 PM on September 17, 2015

Brilliant. Best of the web.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 7:06 PM on September 17, 2015

I still don't get it...
posted by orangutan at 7:09 PM on September 17, 2015

Ah, ha, ha, ha.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:24 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm both pleased that I guessed the joke and at the quality of the joke presented. Good stuff.

So you might say that... you started a joke that started the whole world laughing?
posted by jonp72 at 7:33 PM on September 17, 2015 [2 favorites]

I still don't get it...

Well, we can try to understand, but ultimately we're living in a world of fools, and it's just jive talkin'.
posted by thetortoise at 8:29 PM on September 17, 2015 [3 favorites]

Ya Latif! Would someone be so good as to memail me the esoteric secrets of this joke?
posted by BinGregory at 8:31 PM on September 17, 2015

Duh, ok.
posted by BinGregory at 8:54 PM on September 17, 2015

I would also love it if someone explained this to me.
posted by charismatic megafauna at 10:18 PM on September 17, 2015

Ba'hari Ghibb = Barry Gibb, you go from there.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 10:27 PM on September 17, 2015 [1 favorite]

Wow. This kind of cultural appropriation of Muslim culture, by men who think of themselves as White, is seriously problematic.
posted by theorique at 5:19 AM on September 18, 2015

Wow. This kind of cultural appropriation of Muslim culture, by men who think of themselves as White, is seriously problematic.

Not being Australian, or familiar with Barry Gibb (although I had a vague idea that this was how I was supposed to be reading the name, so I guess it's seeped into me somehow), I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be appreciating a fine joke here, or feeling mildly appalled at the Muslimface stuff, or just supposed to shrug and go "oh, Australia!" because this sort of thing seems to be how y'all roll down under.

I get the feeling that the impression is it's just wacky lighthearted fun like the Johnny Carson Swami "Carnac" routine, without realizing that the Johnny Carson Swami routine was not such a great idea either.

I guess my takeaway is if the joke is only funny because of the Other-People's-Culture lens it's being crammed through, it's probably not that great a joke in the first place. This also applies to "square white people 'rap' about ____" jokes, many comedy bits involving hats from around the world, and a bunch of other stuff that I am suddenly too tired to enumerate.
posted by Shepherd at 6:28 AM on September 18, 2015

I get the feeling that the impression is it's just wacky lighthearted fun like the Johnny Carson Swami "Carnac" routine, without realizing that the Johnny Carson Swami routine was not such a great idea either.

That seems about right. That said, I think the core joke is the nonsense gibberish funny, a la Adriano Celentano’s “Prisencolinensinainciusol” or the Dinklage cover of the Game of Thrones theme. If they dropped the hats and conversion narrative and just recast it as found religious music about the prophet Ba’hari Ghibb, it’d be fine (for me; your own outrage may vary).
posted by Going To Maine at 7:25 AM on September 18, 2015

(I'm being somewhat cheeky - I think they are just being silly.)
posted by theorique at 7:48 AM on September 18, 2015

by men who think of themselves as White

Wait, what's Ba'hari White got to do with this?
posted by progosk at 9:06 AM on September 18, 2015 [4 favorites]

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be appreciating a fine joke here, or feeling mildly appalled at the Muslimface stuff, or just supposed to shrug and go "oh, Australia!" because this sort of thing seems to be how y'all roll down under.

I was kind of offended/annoyed by it, because yo white dudes, y'all have a whole tradition of religious music that sounds mostly nonsensical to a lot of people (any hymn in Latin for example), you didn't necessarily need to pick the ~exotic~ musical tradition of a whole different religion for your joke. But ultimately yeah, I think they're just being silly, and I can't get too worked up about it. I palate cleansed with actual qawwali music.
posted by yasaman at 6:04 PM on September 18, 2015 [1 favorite]

They also do a traditional Swedish folk song
posted by salix at 10:42 PM on September 18, 2015