Despite generating seemingly endless controversy, Boy George’s musical tribute to the victims of the Nova Music Festival Massacre took the Jewish and Israeli world by storm, in a good way. The Solomon Brothers, a folk rock and bluegrass band, have created their own cover, changing the style from reggae to folk in their rendition.
The music group comprises three brothers (though only two are shown in the video): Nachman, lead singer and guitarist; Yosef, bass guitarist and singer; and Sruli, mandolin player and singer. The brothers grew up in Israel on the moshav of Mevo Modi’im and largely perform in Israel.
The brothers bring to Boy George’s song, “We Will Dance Again,” their trademark heartfelt instrumentation and mellow vocal harmony.
Boy George unleashed a wave of anger and backlash when he released his song, “We Will Dance Again,” which laid out his sentiments in black and white. In the song, he told his anti-Israel listeners that what they call genocide is in fact a war, and he accused his fellow musicians of acting like sheep, following the herd.
“But if you’re ever confused, I stand with the Jews,” he stated unequivocally in the song.
His manager, Tony Pontius, quit over the song, saying he wanted “nothing to do with it.” His manager, Paul Kemsley, pulled him from a two-week performance tour of the hit West End revival of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” in which he was supposed to play King Herod. Bandcamp removed his song and his page from its platform. Most recently, a huge mural of the pop icon painted by Israeli artist Benzi Brofman was defaced with a Hamas red triangle.
Boy George wrote the song to honor the victims of the Nova Music Festival massacre and express his rock-solid support for the Jewish people.
Despite the backlash, he has doubled down on the sentiments shared in the song. Replying to someone who called him “Zionist scum” on X, the singer responded by saying, “Jew love is true love!”
Explaining why he refused to tone down his rhetoric, he wrote on X, “I’m afraid it’s not an option.”
“So many people are calling me and saying I should pipe down and let it blow over and while they mean well I’m afraid it’s not an option,” he wrote in his signature comma-less style.
“What is most shocking is the amount of gay folk attacking me but I am smart enough to realise that what you are cannot disguise who you are,” he continued. “No gay person speaks for an entire community and if you support terrorism you can in the words of Divine ‘Take your toolkit and go f— a garage.’”
“When I say ‘they want to kill every last one of us’ I am also talking about us queers not just the Jewish community. When will you wake up?” he demanded.