Its title is on its own a complete piece of counsel: "Bahtın kara olsa, sen kara olma" ("Though your fortune be black, do not you be black"). In Haluk Yücel's 2018 study the song stands among the kırık havas, in a four-beat metre. Everything else in the list, that is, the continuation of the words, its source person, collector and makam, is blank.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya
  • Genre: kırık hava
  • Metre: 4/4
  • Makam: not given
  • Source person, collector, place and date of collection: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source publication: Haluk Yücel, 2018, Table 5 (p. 380), Table 6 (p. 383)
  • Location in the archive: not shown
  • Link: there is no TRT link; Yücel's article

Lyrics

Bahtın kara olsa, sen kara olma

The sense is plain: even if your fortune is black, do not become black yourself. "Baht" means luck, fate; the line separates ill fortune from the person and addresses the listener directly as "you". It is an eleven-syllable line, but to whom it is said and what the rest of the song tells are unknown. No publication yields its full words, a score or a recording.

Story

No account has been recorded of the event on which this counsel was spoken, or of the person it was spoken to.

Musical Features

In the table of genres this song opens a new page. In the table of metres it is preceded by "Amasyalı, Zileli (Gümüşhacıköy)", also in 4/4, and followed by "Geline bakın, geline / Kınalar yakmış eline" in 9/8. It belongs to the large four-beat group, which by Yücel's count ranks first among Amasya folk songs; on its scale and range, however, the article gives no information.

Performers and Recordings

Both of its neighbours in the table are in the TRT repertoire and have pages of their own: Amasyalı Zileli and Geline Bakın Geline. "Bahtın kara olsa", however, is not in the repertoire's Amasya section and has entered no record other than Yücel's table. Because Yücel does not specify one by one from which albums and people he collected his songs, no performer's name can be given for this song. The known melodies of the city and its districts are brought together in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources