The song, written and composed by Akiva Nof, is based on the story from 2 Samuel 23: King David was saying he wanted to drink water from his hometown of Bethlehem, then under Philistine control, and three of his men went there to get him some, but when they returned King David refused to drink the water that his men had risked their lives to get, and instead offered it as libation for God.
The Gashashim were approached by their manager, Avraham ‘Pashanel’ Deshe, with the song, requesting that they perform it at the the Israel Song Festival of 1970. The trio found the song and certainly the event too serious for their usual comedic repertoire and thought they were doing well enough in their careers as it was, but as Deshe insisted they agreed to perform the song as they saw fit, comedy and all.
Thus, the trio recruited Uri Zohar, who was still known for his wild nature at the time (not yet having become a devout Orthodox Jew), to direct them in a sufficiently comedic fashion. For their outfits, Yisrael Poliakov came up with the idea of using soldiers’ outfits from the Cameri Theatre’s production of Lysistrata; this was done both to fit the Biblical theme and to mock the spectacle other contestants were making of the event with their excessively ornate attire. They put on these outfits at the theatre, crossed the street wearing them, and appeared before Deshe in them, much to his shock.
At the event itself, the nature of their performance was a closely-guarded secret. They were repeatedly asked about their clothing for their performance and consistently lied or evaded the question. Even the evening’s host, Yitzhak Shim‘oni, was kept in the dark; only Sha’ul Biber, who had served on the committee selecting the songs for the event, knew in advance. To maintain this secrecy, the trio kept their outfits under a tarp, in a room guarded by fellow contestant Shlomo Artzi.
The trio’s act was the eighth that evening; during the seventh, they quickly took their outfits from under the tarp, got dressed, came out, shocked Artzi with their appearance, went onstage, and began their performance.
As it quickly turned out, whenever the trio would raise their arms as part of their choreography, their underpants appeared under their short Ancient Greek-styled military skirts. They were, in fact, not aware that it would happen, as they had never rehearsed the song in costume, but they immediately realized why the audience, including Akiva Nof himself, was roaring with laughter. (In retrospect, they realized that the white colour of underpants they were wearing were a good fit, as they were highly visible—had they been black, it would have looked as though they were attempting to hide the embarrassing wardrobe malfunction.) Shim‘oni, apparently resenting the trick pulled on him, reminded the audience to vote for the song and not the staging; he also referred to the act as a ‘Roman spectacle’ (חִזָּיוֹן רוֹמִי xizayon Romi), but the audience widely misheard it as ‘Roman disgrace’ (בִּזָּיוֹן רוֹמִי bizayon Romi). The trio held a long-standing grudge for him over this, as they believed he had chilled their previously enthusiastic reception by the audience. Indeed, this chilling effect could explain why they only came in eighth place in that contest. Ironically, despite their intention to mock the ornate apparel of other contestants, the winner that night was actually Artzi, performing ‘Suddenly Now, Suddenly Today’ in a plain navy uniform.
Continuing from said chilled reaction, the performance was met with some controversy for being such a groundbreaking event: it was a song regarding a heroic myth involving one of the most revered figures in Jewish culture, made into a comedic act, performed by veteran entertainers, rocking the respectable festival they had been brought to. In fact, sociologist Noa Lavi goes as far as to argue that their confidently self-deprecating performance with unabashedly effeminate undertones was a pivotal moment in creating a new model of masculinity for Israeli men.
Indeed, the trio recalled a later performance, in which then-Prime Minister Golda Meir sat in the front row. They agreed not to perform the song, figuring it would be disrespectful towards a person of her standing, but at the end of the show, when she was asked if she had enjoyed it, she said she had but asked, ‘Where were the underpants?’ So, they returned to perform the song as an encore, costume and all.
Another fan of the song was celebrity lyricist Naomi Shemer. She had previously been reluctant to work with the trio, and then, once she had relented to see them peform, agreed to write them an opera for them; however, Shim‘oni’s actions irritated her so much that she wrote the response song ‘Why did Michal Laugh?’ for them to perform. This song marked the starting point of many more collaborations between her and the trio.
Nowadays, after a long process of liberalization in Israel, the song is considered a classic.
