In a Beirut bar, Ziad lives on: 'He will be reborn every time someone discovers his songs'

It could have been a Saturday night like any other at the Red Night, also known as Abu Elie, tucked away at the end of Beirut's Hamra Street, in the Caracas neighborhood. Revolutionary portraits, mostly of leftist figures, line the walls and customers drink under the watchful gaze of Che Guevara, Kamal Joumblatt, George Hawi, Samir Kassir and ... Ziad Rahbani.The bar was packed, its name a tribute to an old friend of the man whose face now feels more present than ever. Ziad Rahbani, son of Fairuz and Assi Rahbani, the restless genius who gave Beirut its most biting humor and its deepest melancholia, died yesterday morning in a hospital barely a kilometer away. More on this Lebanon mourns the loss of Ziad Rahbani, a pillar of the cultural scene On everyone’s lips was Ziad's name, and more than that, the songs that shaped generations....