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If I don’t move now/For two seconds/This butterfly will land on the back of my hand/The world is beautiful/Unfortunately we couldn’t see it,” sings Gil Ofarim in his song “A Part of Me”. The 2020 song from the album “Alles auf Hope” (the singer’s first German-language one) is known to be a homage to his father Abi Ofarim, who died in 2019.
In one Instagram video Ofarim now explains how the piece was created in a phase of openness together with Tom Albrecht and Christian Neander, the guitarist and songwriter from Selig, at a meeting in Berlin. For the 43-year-old, Neander is something of a nursery hero. He used to listen to “Ohne Dich” (1994) by Selig over and over again.
However, the production of the music back then was almost like a kind of “men’s therapy group”, where everyone talked together about personal experiences of pain and separation, says Ofarim.
To this day, “Ein Tel von mir” is considered one of the musician’s most personal and honest songs. Ofarim didn’t feel completely capable of talking about his loss at the time, he says in the video. But together with my colleagues it worked.
Last greeting from the deceased father
Not everyone was aware of what the butterfly in the track was all about. As the singer now tells in the “Behind The Songs” clip, it’s about an experience that he and his co-songwriter Tom Albrecht surprisingly shared, as they found out in the intimate conversation at the time.
While grieving for their fathers, both experienced a butterfly landing on their shoulder or hand. For the musicians, a clear sign from above – a different encounter with their fathers.
So the butterfly became a symbolic part of the song, conveying despite the pain that the deceased remains a part of you (“A part of me never stops loving who we were”).
By the way: On the same day that “A Part of Me” was written, the song “Pierrot” was also written. There is also an acoustic version of the song, which was created in collaboration with Cassandra Steen.
