This song, which carries the city's name in its title, belongs to the first working day of the Ankara State Conservatory team in Amasya in the summer of 1943. Recorded on 4 July from Abdullah Çakırer and Muhlis Orçun, the tune was written down by Ateş Köyoğlu and became TRT no. 1898. The words open on a view of mountains and vineyards, but what they really describe is the price of a love affair: the line that follows the tavern on the street corner is spoken by someone ready to face fifteen years in prison for the sake of his beloved. The melody moves within a range of six notes, from Fa sharp to Re; among Amasya's 48 TRT kırık havas this is the most common range, found in twelve songs.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: TRT THM 1898, kırık hava
  • Region: Amasya (central district)
  • Source performers: Abdullah Çakırer, Muhlis Orçun; the conservatory catalogue also lists Muharrem Sorgu among the performers
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory
  • Collection date: 4 July 1943; title in the catalogue "Amasya Dağları", disc 1105/A-1
  • Transcribed by: Ateş Köyoğlu
  • Mode: Uşşak + Hicaz scale in the repertoire data; Demircioğlu gives Hicaz alone. Final and closing note La
  • Metre: 4/4
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 1898; catalogue data, lyrics and audio files on Repertükül (TRT has no official online page for individual works)
  • Ministry of Culture and Tourism audio: listed by the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism as "Amasyanın Dağları", listen

Lyrics

Amasya'nın dağları
Üzümlüdür bağları
Pek hoşuma gidiyor
Saçlarının bağları
Bağlantı:
Haydi haydi cimdallı
Kızlar giyer bindallı
Gönül güzele bağlı
Şimdi kızlar ilvanlı
Köşe başı meyhane
Asmadandır kapusu
Ben gözüme aldırdım
On beş sene mapusu
(Bağlantı)

The first quatrain is simple: the mountains of Amasya have vineyards full of grapes, and I am very fond of the ribbons that tie my sweetheart's hair. The word "bağ" is played on in both its senses, first vineyard, then hair tie. The refrain (bağlantı) says the girls wear the bindallı, a velvet dress embroidered with gold-thread branch patterns, worn at weddings and feasts. By the glossary, "ilvanlı" means showy, adorned. "Cimdallı" is not in the glossary and its meaning is not explained in the sources; in the line it sounds like a call or a term of endearment.

In the second quatrain the scene changes. On the street corner there is a tavern whose door is of vine, that is, one enters under a vine arbour; the singer says he has accepted fifteen years in prison for this love. "Mapus" is a folk form of mahpus, imprisonment. Which crime or which fight the song hints at cannot be drawn from the text. The quatrain speaks in the boastful voice of a young man who will risk anything for love, and set beside the cheerful picture of the girls in the refrain it gives the song an unexpected hardness.

Story

The prison line hints at a story, yet no account in print is known that ties the song to a particular event. The collection slip and the repertoire data are both silent on the matter; whose experience the words describe remains unclear.

Musical Features

Final and close both fall on La. The melody stays within six notes, between Fa sharp and Re. The repertoire data give the scale as a compound "Uşşak + Hicaz", meaning that part of the melody uses the notes of Uşşak and part those of Hicaz. Nail Demircioğlu's table gives only Hicaz; according to that table four of Amasya's 48 TRT folk songs are in Hicaz. The metre is 4/4, which by Haluk Yücel's count is also the most frequent metre in Amasya's folk songs. In his 2018 genre list Yücel gives the song as a kırık hava under the title "Amasya'nın dağları".

In form, the song is built from seven-syllable quatrains and a four-line refrain. All four lines of the refrain rhyme on the sounds "-allı" and "-anlı", which sets it apart from the quatrains and makes it a repeated, easily remembered chorus.

Performers and Recordings

Two recordings let the song be heard from two different eras: one comes from the 1943 collection, the other is a present-day performance by Halis Çaşkurlu, named as performer in the catalogue data. The regional music list of the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism also has an audio file titled "Amasyanın Dağları"; no singer is named there. On the same day Abdullah Çakırer and Muhlis Orçun also sang "Çakallardan İner Vermiş Kömürü" for the team; this work stands in the TRT repertoire as no. 4306, again under the names of these two source performers. Çakırer, Orçun and Muharrem Sorgu also recorded the song "Mendilim Var" together.

Collections and Variants

In the conservatory catalogue the song is called "Amasya Dağları", its first line given as "Amasyanın dağları", and the place of recording is in square brackets, that is, the cataloguer's inference that it was Amasya; the date, by contrast, is written plainly on the slip. While the catalogue also counts Muharrem Sorgu among the performers, the TRT notation names only Çakırer and Orçun as source performers. The sources searched turned up no second collection of the song and no variant with different words. This song bearing the city's name is also mentioned among the Amasya pieces of the repertoire in the article The Melody of the Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources