Seder-Masochism

{{Infobox film

| name = Seder-Masochism

| image = SederMasochismPoster.jpg

| caption = Poster

| producer = Nina Paley

| writer = Nina Paley

| distributor =

| released = {{Film date|2018|06|11|Annecy International Animated Film Festival{{cite web |url=https://www.annecy.org/programme/index:film-20183119 |title=Seder-Masochism |date=June 2018 |work=Annecy International Animated Film Festival |access-date=August 14, 2018}}}}

| runtime = 78 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $20,000{{cite web |url=http://www.animationmagazine.net/top-stories/10-questions-for-nina-paley-writerdirectorproduceranimator-seder-masochism/ |title=10 Questions for Nina Paley Writer/Director/Producer/Animator of Seder-Masochism |author=Ramin Zahed |date=June 13, 2018 |work=Animation Magazine}}

}}

Seder-Masochism is a 2018 American animated musical biblical comedy-drama film written, directed, produced and animated by American artist Nina Paley. The film reinterprets the Book of Exodus, especially stories associated with the Passover Seder, such as the death of the Egyptian first-born, and Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt. The film depicts these events against a backdrop of widespread worship of the Great Mother Goddess, showing the rise of patriarchy.

Seder-Masochism is Paley's second feature film, following Sita Sings the Blues in 2008, an animated film loosely based on the Ramayana. In a similar fashion to her previous work, Paley mainly uses previously published music in Seder-Masochism, with popular and liturgical songs ranging from 1928 to 2018. She also draws from spoken voice recordings she made in 2011 with her father, Hiram Paley, who is placed in the role of the traditional Hebrew deity. Greg Sextro served as sound designer on the film.{{cite web |url=http://sedermasochism.com/credits/ |title=Credits |work=Seder-Masochism |author=Nina Paley |access-date=August 14, 2018}}

With Theodore Gray, Paley formed PaleGray Labs to create a method for animating embroidery, which they call "embroidermation". In Seder-Masochism, embroidered animation is the basis for one scene: "Chad Gadya".

Debuting in the 2018 film festival season, Seder-Masochism was reviewed positively, with Paley's bright and satirical style compared to Monty Python and others. The film earned the Audience Award at the ANIMATOR film festival in Poland.

Plot

File:Moses Hebrews Promised Land by Nina Paley.jpg, Moses and Aharon lead the Israelites into the Promised Land]]

The Book of Exodus is retold by Moses, his brother Aaron, the Angel of Death, Jesus, and the traditional Hebrew God. The ancient mother goddess is cast in a "tragic struggle" against the new patriarchy.{{cite web |url=http://sedermasochism.com/2018/04/12/synopsis/ |title=Synopsis |date=April 12, 2018 |author=Nina Paley |work=Seder-Masochism: A new animated feature from the creator of Sita Sings the Blues |access-date=August 30, 2018}}

Cast

Hiram Paley – Our Father
Nina Paley – Sacrificial Goat
Barry Gray – Jesus

Production

After Sita Sings the Blues, Paley was criticized by some observers for co-opting the culture of India as an outsider, an assertion with which she strongly disagreed. A recurring theme among the negative comments was "how would you like it if people made a film about your religion?"{{cite web |url=https://fr.globalvoices.org/2018/02/06/221044/ |title=Dans son film 'Seder-Masochism' Nina Paley éclaire la naissance du patriarcat dans le Livre de l'Exode en animant des idoles antiques |language=French |author1=Subhashish Panigrahi |author2=Qurratulain (Annie) Zaman |translator=Suzanne Lehn |date=February 6, 2018 |publisher=Global Voices |access-date=August 15, 2018}} Paley thought that she would enjoy watching any such film. Accepting this as a challenge, she turned to her own Jewish cultural heritage for her next project: a revisionist retelling of the story of Passover. For inspiration, she also read The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, and The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas.{{cite web |url=https://www.awn.com/animationworld/seder-masochism-why-film-different-all-other-films |title='Seder-Masochism': Why Is This Film Different from All Other Films? |author=Sharon Katz |date=June 14, 2018 |work=Animation World Network |access-date=August 15, 2018}} She concluded that the Book of Exodus represents the final defeat of goddess worship by the patriarchy that had been rising since the agricultural revolution.{{cite web |url=https://inliquid.org/calendar/seder-masochism-female-deicide-in-the-book-of-exodus-lecture/ |title=Seder-Masochism: Female Deicide in the Book of Exodus |date=September 8, 2017 |author=Nina Paley |work=InLiquid Calendar |accessdate=August 15, 2018 |archive-date=August 15, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180815164221/https://inliquid.org/calendar/seder-masochism-female-deicide-in-the-book-of-exodus-lecture/ |url-status=dead }}

File:God Dollar by Nina Paley.jpg, in conversation with his daughter Nina Paley, depicted as the sacrificial goat]]

In 2011, Paley interviewed her terminally ill father, Hiram, intending that his voice would serve as the old bearded god figure of the Israelites. For herself, she chose to play the part of a sacrificial goat, because animal sacrifice was essential to many early religions, and because she has been seen as the black sheep of her family.{{cite magazine |url=https://variety.com/2018/film/festivals/annecy-seder-masochism-nina-paley-1202839427/ |title=Annecy: 'Seder-Masochism' Director Nina Paley: 'I Have No Idea How This Movie Will Go Into the World' |author=Ben Croll |date=June 10, 2018 |magazine=Variety}} Hiram Paley died in 2012 at the age of 78. Even though her father was a Jewish atheist, the Paley family had celebrated Passover every year so that the children would know their cultural identity. Paley, also a Jewish atheist, weaves the voice recordings of her father into the film as a way to understand the Passover story.{{cite web |url=https://www.nycreligion.info/moses-exodus-makeover-animator-nina-paley-grooving/ |title=Moses make-over by animator Nina Paley will have you grooving |author=Pauline Dolle |date=April 3, 2018 |work=A Journey Through NYC Religions |access-date=August 15, 2018}}

In September 2011, Paley initiated a Kickstarter crowd-funding effort to raise money for "Phase I" of the film, with a goal of $3,600. The campaign brought in $4,146.{{cite web |url=https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1850676295/seder-masochism-phase-i |title=Seder Masochism: Phase I |author=Nina Paley |date=September 8, 2011 |publisher=Kickstarter |accessdate=August 15, 2018}} The intent of Phase I was to make recordings of various family Passover Seder discussions. Ultimately, the project took another direction, and the recordings were not used in the film.{{cite web |author=Nina Paley |title=Who is Producer X? |url=http://blog.ninapaley.com/2018/04/25/who-is-producer-x/ |date=April 25, 2018 |work=Nina Paley Blog |access-date=August 15, 2018}}

Paley worked on the project over the course of six years, spending about three-and-a-half years animating and producing it. First, she animated some musical numbers – "This Land Is Mine" and "Moses-Exodus" – using Macromedia Flash 8 running on a first-generation Mac Pro tower, but this was not powerful enough to edit 4K resolution video in a practical manner. In 2013, she shifted the project to a second-generation Mac Pro, the vertical cylinder model, and settled on the application Anime Studio Pro. Paley initially found the Anime Studio Pro interface to be frustratingly complex, so she hosted Chilean animator Victor Paredes at her workspace for a week in 2014 to better learn the software. In 2016, Anime Studio Pro became Moho Pro, with an upgraded version. Paley said that it was not until 2017 that she could express herself easily in Moho Pro.{{cite web |url=https://www.awn.com/animationworld/dancing-goddesses-how-nina-paley-animated-stone-sculptures-seder-masochism |title=Dancing Goddesses: How Nina Paley Animated Stone Sculptures for 'Seder-Masochism' |author=Jennifer Wolfe |date=August 23, 2018 |work=Animation World Network |access-date=August 24, 2018}}

{{multiple image

| align = left

| image1 = British Museum Queen of the Night.jpg

| width1 = 120

| caption1 = "Queen of the Night", Mesopotamia (1800 BC)

| image2 = Goddess gif small 4.gif

| width2 = 105

| caption2 = Paley's animation of the figure

}}

In November 2017, Paley wrote that much of the project had been completed without a "coherent story", despite the attempt to tie it together in the loose form of a Passover Seder. She decided instead "to articulate the Exodus from the Goddesses' point of view", the goddesses who were at that time worshiped in Egypt as Hathor, Isis, Nut, Sekhmet, and others.{{cite web |author=Nina Paley |title=Seder-Masochism Progress Report |url=http://blog.ninapaley.com/2017/11/29/5221/ |date=November 29, 2017 |work=Nina Paley Blog |access-date=August 14, 2018}} This turned her film into a narrative "about patriarchy and the suppression of the Goddess".

After showing rough cuts of the new concept to friends, Paley decided to bring more goddess images into the film. In late 2017/early 2018, she imported high-resolution photos of ancient goddess figurines into the graphics editor GIMP to remove backgrounds, then she exported the resulting PNG files to Moho. In Moho, Paley assigned "little skeleton" points on the images to establish how the goddess figurines could bend, and she created additional layers for smaller movements such as eye blinks and smiling/frowning. She offered these individual goddess animations for free on her blog. Among the goddess figurines appearing in the film are the Seated Woman of Çatalhöyük (6,000 BC, Turkey), the Venus of Willendorf (30,000 BC, Austria), and the Venus of Hohle Fels (35,000 BC, Germany).{{cite web |url=http://www.zippyframes.com/index.php/reviews/seder-masochism-review |author=Vassilis Kroustallis |title=Seder-Masochism Review: Let's Dance |date=June 13, 2018 |work=Zippy Frames |access-date=August 25, 2018}}

The final assembly and editing of the film were performed on Final Cut Pro X, which Paley said was "horrible" in its interface but powerful in its processing of 4K video: 3840×2160 pixels. In all, Paley estimated the film's final budget at $20,000.

=Embroidery animation=

File:Embroidered goat from Chad Gadya raw frames.png

Paley teamed with science writer and programmer Theodore Gray to develop "embroidermation": an automated method of animating embroidery. In 2015 after working for a year and a half, the PaleGray Labs team produced a Passover-themed animated short, "Chad Gadya", intended to serve as intermission for Seder-Masochism.{{cite web |url=https://www.awn.com/news/watch-intricate-embroidery-comes-life-chad-gadya |title=Watch: Intricate Embroidery Comes to Life in 'Chad Gadya' |author=Jeremy Monsayac |date=July 14, 2015 |work=Animation World Network |access-date=September 1, 2018}} Paley created animated figures in Macromedia Flash 8, then Gray imported the resulting vector files into Wolfram Mathematica, a powerful visualization program which he co-created. The figures were rendered as polygons in Mathematica, then a custom application was written to properly align the embroidery stitch direction, different for each polygon.{{cite web |url=http://home.theodoregray.com/stitchblog/2015/7/10/embroidered-animation-finally |title=Embroidered Animation! Finally! |date=July 10, 2015 |author=Theodore Gray |work=Stitchblog |accessdate=September 1, 2018}} Using an embroidery machine, a total of 516 embroidered figures were stitched into 86 matzoh covers (decorative cloths for holding matzoh during Passover), then each completed figure was photographed to create one frame of animation.{{cite magazine |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/laborious-embroidery-animation-brings-passover-folk-song-life-180956256/ |title=This Animation Is Made of Embroidery |author=Marissa Fessenden |date=August 12, 2015 |magazine=Smithsonian}} The "Chad Gadya" scene runs just under 3 minutes, accompanied by the children's Passover song, "Chad Gadya", sung by Moishe Oysher and recorded in the 1950s.[https://vimeo.com/133054221 "Chad Gadya" video] on Vimeo

Release

File:Moses Fire by Nina Paley.jpg in front of the Pillar of Fire]]

File:Paroles Goddess Willendorfs Hands by Nina Paley.jpg

File:Moses Hathor by Nina Paley.jpg to believe in the goddess]]

File:Angel O Death by Nina Paley.jpg sings above nuclear destruction]]

When the film was complete, Paley determined to wait until it had been screened at film festivals before she offered the film for free online in the same manner as Sita Sings the Blues.{{cite web |author=Nina Paley |title=Where is Seder-Masochism? |date=July 16, 2018 |url=http://blog.ninapaley.com/2018/07/16/where-is-seder-masochism/ |work=Nina Paley Blog |access-date=August 14, 2018}} Earlier, she uploaded some scenes-in-progress to Vimeo and YouTube, including the opening "God-Mother" number in 2017,{{cite web |url=https://boingboing.net/2017/08/17/nina-paleys-haunting-mesmer.html |title=Nina Paley's haunting, mesmerizing, and life-affirming God-Mother animation |author=Gareth Branwyn |date=August 17, 2017 |work=Boing Boing |access-date=August 15, 2018}} and "Death of the Firstborn Egyptians" in 2014, the latter gaining 2.7 million views by August 2020.[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMCeQ-IloLg Nina Paley (2014) "Death of the Firstborn Egyptians"] on YouTube The scene "This Land Is Mine" was first posted in 2012, and by 2014 had received 10 million views, with more viewers added during every news cycle highlighting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.{{cite web |url=https://forward.com/schmooze/203992/how-nina-paley-made-this-land-is-mine-viral/ |title=How Nina Paley Made 'This Land Is Mine' Viral |author=Roz Warren |date=August 13, 2014 |work=The Schmooze |access-date=August 15, 2018}}

=Screenings=

June 11–15, 2018 – France: Annecy International Animated Film Festival
July 8–9, 2018 – Poland: ANIMATOR festival
August 7–11, 2018 – Israel: Animix Festival{{cite web |url=http://www.animixfest.co.il/en/program/masochistic-seder/ |title=Seder-Masochism USA 2017 Nina Paley |publisher=Animix Festival |access-date=August 15, 2018}}
September 19–30, 2018 – Greece: Athens International Film Festival{{cite web |url=http://sedermasochism.com/screenings/ |title=Screenings |work=Seder-Masochism |author=Nina Paley |date=2018 |access-date=September 6, 2018}}
September 26–30, 2018 – Greece: Animasyros (Ermoupoli)
September 27–29, 2018 – Canada: Ottawa International Animation Festival{{cite web |url=https://www.animationfestival.ca/index.php?option=com_oiaf&task=showevent&i=1551#1551 |title=Seder-Masochism |publisher=Ottawa International Animation Festival |access-date=August 15, 2018}}
October 3–4, 2018 – Canada: Vancouver International Film Festival
October 4–14, 2018 – Spain: Sitges Film Festival
October 4–14, 2018 – United States: Mill Valley Film Festival{{cite web |url=https://www.mvff.com/premieres/ |title=Premieres at MVFF41 |publisher=Mill Valley Film Festival |date=2018 |access-date=September 6, 2018}}
October 19–21, 2018 – United States: Animation is Film (Los Angeles){{cite news |url=https://www.awn.com/news/ruben-brandt-collector-seder-masochism-among-11-features-compete-animation-film |title='Ruben Brandt, Collector,' 'Seder-Masochism' Among 11 Features to Compete at ANIMATION IS FILM |author=Staff |date=September 20, 2018 |work=Animation World Network |accessdate=September 22, 2018}}
October 22–26, 2018 – Italy: VIEW Conference (Turin)
October 24–27, 2018 – Israel: AniNation International Animation Festival
October 25–28, 2018 – Norway: Fredrikstad Animation Festival{{cite web |url=http://blog.ninapaley.com/2018/09/02/seder-masochism-festivals-september-october-2018/ |title=Seder-Masochism festivals, September-October 2018 |publisher=Nina Paley |date=September 2, 2018 |accessdate=September 22, 2018 |archive-date=September 21, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180921212743/http://blog.ninapaley.com/2018/09/02/seder-masochism-festivals-september-october-2018/ |url-status=dead }}
October 23 – November 21, 2018 – Australia: Jewish International Film Festival
October 26 – November 3, 2018 – Russia: Big Cartoon Festival (Moscow)
October 28 – November 3, 2018 – Armenia: ReAnimania (Yerevan)
November 20–25, 2018 – Poland: Etiuda & Anima (Kraków){{cite web|url=http://etiudaandanima.pl/en/seder-masochizm/|title=Seder-Masochism – Etiuda & Anima|website=Etiudaandanima.pl|accessdate=6 January 2019|archive-date=December 19, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181219044422/http://etiudaandanima.pl/en/seder-masochizm/|url-status=dead}}
November 21–25, 2018 – Canada: Les Sommets du Cinema d’Animation (Montreal)
November 28 – December 2, 2018 – Hungary: Anilogue
December 13, 2018 – France: Le Carrefour du Cinéma d’Animation (Paris){{cite web|url=https://www.forumdesimages.fr/les-programmes/carrefour-du-cinema-danimation-2018/seder-masochism|title=Seder-Masochism - Les Programmes|website=Forumdesimages.fr|accessdate=6 January 2019}}
January 13–14, 2019 – United States: New York Jewish Film Festival
January 10–24, 2019 – United States: Miami Jewish Film Festival
March 17, 2019 - Austria: Tricky Women Festival
October 12–13, 2019 - United States: Cleveland Cinematheque{{cite web|url=https://www.cia.edu/cinematheque/film-schedule/2019/10/seder-masochism|title=Seder-Masochism – Etiuda & Anima|website=Etiudaandanima.pl|accessdate=6 January 2019}}

=Public domain dedication=

On January 24, 2019, Paley dedicated the film to the public domain, releasing it under a CC0 license and uploading the master files to the Internet Archive. Paley clarified that the music used in the film was still copyrighted by its original authors, and this was one of the reasons she had no plans to pursue commercial distribution of the film.{{cite web |last1=Paley |first1=Nina |title=PRESS RELEASE: Seder-Masochism to go Public Domain January 31, 2019 – Seder-Masochism |url=https://sedermasochism.com/2019/01/02/press-release-seder-masochism-to-go-public-domain-january-31-2019/ |website=Seder-Masochism |accessdate=27 August 2020 |date=2 January 2019}}

Reception

Following June 2018 showing at Annecy International Animated Film Festival, The Hollywood Reporter wrote that the film was "completely irreverent, occasionally hilarious and politically evocative", and that it "defies definition" with its different aspects of musical comedy, psychedelic cartoon, and "insolent" religious epic. Paley is observed to have "lots of fun" turning Bible events "into Busby Berkeley-style song-and-dance numbers."{{cite magazine |url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/seder-masochism-review-1120073 |title='Seder-Masochism': Film Review | Annecy 2018 |author=Jordan Mintzer |date=June 14, 2018 |magazine=The Hollywood Reporter}} Spain's El Mundo newspaper compared the film's irony and apparent naïveté to works by the Marx Brothers, Italian playwright Dario Fo, and Monty Python, writing that Paley applies unprejudiced and sharp commentary to the Jewish story while remaining bright and ridiculous.{{cite news |url=http://www.elmundo.es/cultura/cine/2018/06/14/5b222e9ce5fdea49598b45ba.html |author=Luis Martinez |title=El patriarcado desacralizado y otros milagros de la animación radical en Annecy |language=Spanish |date=June 14, 2018 |work=El Mundo}} French film website Courte-Focale compared Seder-Masochism to Monty Python's Life of Brian, writing that Paley brought a "fiercely humorous" spirit to the task of attacking patriarchal religion, an attack carried out with "acuteness and precision" in a way that disarms her opponents and yields a hilarious result.{{cite web |url=http://www.courte-focale.fr/cinema/festivals/annecy-2018/annecy-seder-masochism/ |title=Annecy 2018 | Wall / Seder-Masochism |author=Matthieu Ruard |date=June 2018 |work=Courte-Focale |language=French |access-date=August 15, 2018}} Greek animator Vassilis Kroustallis said that Paley's second film "is another bold attempt... to associate the catastrophe that religion may bring with the male ego." He wrote that the musical choreography is good but the editing suffers from the juxtaposition of different scenes. Variety wrote that the film was "delightfully impudent" and inventive, despite being "episodic and uneven" in its presentation as a series of short scenes.{{cite magazine |url=https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/seder-masochism-review-1202985463/ |title=Animation Is Film Review: 'Seder-Masochism' |author=Dennis Harvey |date=October 19, 2018 |magazine=Variety}}

In Poznań, Poland, at the ANIMATOR film festival, Seder-Masochism earned the Audience Award for Feature Film.{{cite web |url=http://www.animator-festival.com/en/posts/here-are-the-winners--2 |title=Here Are the Winners |date=July 12, 2018 |publisher=ANIMATOR festival |access-date=August 15, 2018}}

Music

File:Seder-Masochism - This Land is Mine.png

Paley spent $70,000 to secure the music rights to Sita Sings the Blues, just to distribute it freely, so for Seder-Masochism she turned to the parody defense in fair use: a parody of a copyrighted work can be considered fair use.{{cite web |author=Jordan B Peterson |date=July 14, 2018 |title=Nina Paley: Animator Extraordinaire |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyONgwyKEGA |accessdate=August 26, 2018 |publisher=YouTube}} As a result, she did not try to secure the rights to the many recordings she used in the film. She told Variety that anyone who is interested can perform the legal work to clear the music rights, after which that person or corporation will be able to distribute the film commercially or license it for distribution.

The song "This Land Is Mine" came first in Paley's production process; she used it to frame a scene in which a succession of warring men claims the Holy Land as theirs. The music is the main theme of the 1960 film Exodus, composed by Austrian Ernest Gold, with words added later by Pat Boone, which he sang and released as a single titled "The Exodus Song". Boone, an American Christian, said he wrote the lyrics in 25 minutes on Christmas Eve, on the back of a Christmas card, which he later sent to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.{{cite web |url=http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=44569 |title=The Exodus Song (This Land Is Mine) by Pat Boone |work=SongFacts.com |access-date=August 25, 2018}} The version Paley used in Seder-Masochism is a cover by Boone's friend Andy Williams,{{cite news |url=https://www.haaretz.com/.premium-pat-boone-remembers-andy-williams-1.5194425 |title=Pat Boone Remembers 'Exodus' Song Partner Andy Williams |date=October 24, 2012 |author=Mordechai I. Twersky |newspaper=Haaretz}} released in 1962 under the title "The Exodus Song (This Land Is Mine)", as part of his album Moon River and Other Great Movie Themes, the album reaching number 3 on the Billboard Top 200, selling more than two million copies by 1967.{{cite magazine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3yIEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PT26 |page=26 |author=Clive Davis |title=Columbia's View: Market Potential |date=November 11, 1967 |magazine=Billboard |issn=0006-2510}} [Special Issue titled A Billboard Spotlight: Andy Williams] In the 1960s, the song became a Zionist anthem. Paley parodies the song's Zionist theme to show the senselessness of war in the Middle East: the scene ends in atomic destruction, with nobody winning except the Angel of Death.{{cite web |url=http://new-savanna.blogspot.com/2018/08/seder-masochism-beginning-and-end-last.html |title=Seder-Masochism: Nina Paley began at the end and ended at the beginning |author=Jordan Mintzer |date=August 2, 2018 |work=New Savanna |access-date=August 25, 2018}}

Paley commissioned a song for the film from New York-based rock musician Todd Michaelsen, who had earlier collaborated on a song for Sita Sings the Blues, but Paley eventually decided not to use Michaelsen's song. She said that she prefers "songs that have a different original meaning", so that her animation adds a second meaning, yielding greater depth.

For her dancing goddesses number, animated in early 2018, Paley chose a song from the 1976 film Car Wash: "You Gotta Believe", written by Norman Whitfield and performed by the Pointer Sisters, using Rose Royce as the backing band. In Car Wash, Paley said the song is used to "urge activist men to stand up for their activist sisters", but in Seder-Masochism it is an ultimately unsuccessful plea to Moses to embrace goddess worship.[https://vimeo.com/253135841 "You Gotta Believe" video] on Vimeo

The following recordings appear in the film credits:

File:Goddess God Paroles1 by Nina Paley.jpg

File:Moses Aharon Shofar Pharaoh by Nina Paley.jpg, with Moses and Pharaoh]]

File:Women Transformed by Nina Paley.jpg

ca. 1975 – "Kalimankou Denkou" (Godmother Denkou), performed by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir. Yanka Roupkina, soloist
1952 – "Moses Supposes", vocals by Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor, from the film Singin' in the Rain
ca. 1955 – "The Moishe Oysher Seder", spoken by Barry Gray, sung by Moishe Oysher and the Abraham Nadel Chorus
1976 – "You Gotta Believe", sung by the Pointer Sisters with Rose Royce playing the instruments
ca. 1958 – "Go Down Moses", performed by Louis Armstrong and Sy Silver's Orchestra
ca. 1965 – "Tijuana Taxi", performed by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass
ca. 1970s – assorted Muzak
ca. 1933 – "Blood Red River Blues", performed by Josh White
ca. 2004 – "Frogs", by DJ Zeph, featuring Azeem
1982 – "Insects", performed by Oingo Boingo
ca. 1990s – "Dead Animals", performed by Mental Decay
ca. 1968 – "Helter Skelter", performed by the Beatles
1928 – "Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here", performed by Nat Shilkret and the Victor Orchestra
1972 – "Who Turned The Light Out On My Life?", performed by Daniel Boone
ca. 2012 – "The Web" and "Melt Away", performed by the Duke of Uke and His Novelty Orchestra
1978 – "I Will Survive", performed by Gloria Gaynor
1973 – "Free to Be... You and Me", performed by the New Seekers
ca. 1975 – "Erghen Diado" (Diaphonic Chant), performed by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir
ca. 1966 – "Reach Out (I'll Be There)", performed by the Four Tops
ca. 1980 – "Woman", performed by John Lennon
ca. 1975 – "Schopska Pesen" (Song of Schopsko), performed by the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir
1988 – "Used To Love Her", performed by Guns N' Roses
1968 – "Your Time Is Gonna Come", performed by Led Zeppelin
1973 – "Paroles, paroles", sung by Dalida, with spoken word by Alain Delon
1976 – "The Things We Do For Love", performed by 10cc
2018 – "God Is Male", lyrics by Connie Bryson and Nina Paley, music by Nina Paley, organ performed by Camille Goudeseune, vocals by Nina Paley and Emilia Cataldo
ca. 1955 – "Chad Gadya", performed by Moishe Oysher with the Abraham Nadel Chorus
ca. 1998 – "L’Shana Haba’a", performed by the Breslau Synagogue Chorus
1962 – "This Land Is Mine", performed by Andy Williams
ca. 1954 – "Old-Time Religion", performed by the Caravans