Every artist wants his album to be as perfect as can be, but sometimes he has to take a gamble. Is the song he’s deliberating over going to soar or flop? Is that last-minute replacement going to be dynamic or a sleeper?

How do you know you've made the right choice?

Shimmy Engel

When you’re recording an album, after all the revisions and changing the order of the songs umpteen times, there comes a point when you decide that it just has to be final. No. More. Changes. Or it’ll never end. We’d reached that point on my album — and then we heard “Vemen Zohl men Fragen,” by Hershy Weinberger. Unanimously, we caved in, and went back on our decision. “Vemen” just had to have a place, and one of our intended tracks was put on ice for another time.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 745)