“Catbam,” a song written by an 11-year-old boy named Nir Krigel, has become one of the most widely shared clips in the country over the past two weeks, with many on social media calling it the unofficial anthem of Operation Roaring Lion.
The catchy chorus, “What’s that in the sky? Not a bird and not a plane – an unmanned aircraft,” which is called a “catbam” in Hebrew (aka a UAV/drone), has become an earworm for Israelis in between their runs to the bomb shelters, often because of exactly those unmanned aircraft from Iran. The lyrics are a play on the old Superman TV show intro, “Look, up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Superman!”
Krigel, from Moshav Zvi in the Gilboa region, wrote and sang the hip-hop song, and a video of him performing it with his sister, Adi, quickly went viral after she uploaded it to TikTok.
“It’s really crazy. You don’t expect to write a song and, thanks to your sister, have it become famous,” he said in an interview with Channel 12.
Adi said the clip took off almost immediately. “I uploaded it with a friend, and afterward, I made that video with Nir, and it exploded,” she said.
Song expresses fear, pain many are feeling
Videos of the song have hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, and there are countless versions on TikTok, with many users uploading clips of themselves lip-syncing and dancing to the original, a clear sign of true virality.
Krigel told KAN 11 that he was inspired to write the song during the 12 Day War with Iran last June. His supportive parents, realizing that their son has real talent, treated him to a recording session in a professional studio for his 11th birthday in November. When Operation Rising Lion began, Krigel’s sister thought it was the perfect moment to release the song, and how right she turned out to be.
But the song has caught on not only because it is catchy, Krigel thinks, but because it expresses the fear and pain many Israelis are feeling.
“We get stressed because it’s stressful,” he told Channel 12. “This is already the second war we’ve gone through like this. It’s become standard… The song reflects what I’m going through and also what the entire people of Israel are going through… We’re at war, and everyone feels a little sad and in pain. I simply wanted to write that.”
Krigel, who is already at work on a new song, told the KAN 11 interviewer that his unlikely personal success at such a difficult and frightening time has inspired him to counsel others with this message, “Go after your dreams. Never be afraid. Everyone can do it.”