אותי לא יחטפו [Oti Lo Yachtefu] [English translation]

No one will kidnap me

Not me, not today, not tomorrow

No one will take my freedom away in a cold, dark cellar

No one will pluck me like a wild flower

Secret agents won't sneak me quietly out of a train car

The headline "A Man has been Taken" won't be written about me

Whoever says newspapers are outdated

Bro, I won't even have a clickable link

There would be no sticker, no march,

No psycho will demand a million bucks in a suitcase

"200 dollar bills in cash, unmarked,

With every minute you're late, we'll chop off a finger, undersood?"

My mom won't ask, "Perhaps it's all my fault?"

And my sister won't reply, "Mom, this isn't about you!"

Human rights organisations won't check up on me

My dad won't cry over his little boy

Knocking on wood, I won't be taken

I'm spitting them out like spitballs, like in kung fu fighting

Lines of chalk won't display the hours that passed

The days which passed by

Slowly

No one will kidnap me, and there has been chances

In the 50s, babies were kidnapped here

Yemenite babies

The Ethnicity Demon has dropped me in his sortings

But when I went to elementary school,

Some kid, a year older than me, was kidnapped from the next door classroom, I swear

True, his dad took him, an unusual tale, surely

But an actual kidnapping, not kind of, not maybe

And my dad treated me like a king

He joined me through all the field trips

I was scared of sleeping outside without my parents

I was scared of sleeping outside without my parents

I wasn't afraid to be drafted into the military

To the Heavy Artillery Corps, with armoured personnel carriers, they're sort of like tanks

I was the best at the squad commander course, truly

People were afraid to come take guard duties with me

They'd tell me, "Hey Jimbo J, in case we'll have to charge,

You'll die, but won't be taken prisoner,

And in captivity, let's face it,

You need someone's shoulder for support."

I asked for some rationality, they said, "No back-sass!"

Well, since my service, many waters have passed through the river of life

Drowning in reserve duty, and I'm still not getting taken away, even without rubber bands securing my boots

Knocking on wood, I won't be taken

I'm spitting them out like spitballs, like in kung fu fighting

Lines of chalk won't display the hours that passed

The days which passed by

Slowly

Yeah, I also traveled, Mexico City

The kidnapping capital of the world, been there

They told me, "Listen man, it's statistic,

Every twenty minutes someone gets kidnapped there."

I said, "Move it, move it, screw it!"

I ate some tacos, tortillas; wore a sombrero and from there

I went to Sinai, despite all the warnings,

Despite all the famous travel advisories

Guess who was not kidnapped?

Who explored the depths with a snorkel,

Volleyball, with some maqluba1 and some chicks

Knocking on wood, I won't be taken

I'm spitting them out like spitballs, like in kung fu fighting

Lines of chalk won't display the hours that passed

The days which passed by

Slowly

1. A traditional Syrian, Iraqi, Palestinian, and Jordanian dish. It consists of meat, rice, and fried vegetables placed in a pot which is flipped upside down when served, hence the name 'maqluba', which translates literally as "upside-down."

• Artist:Jimbo J