"Dem Be Dem Karşıma Gelen Bülbül" ("The Nightingale That Comes Before Me Now and Then") sings a short text of two stanzas in a metre found in no other song of the Amasya repertoire: a limping usul born of 10/8 joined to 7/8. Its source performer is Âşık Musa Aslan. On the evening of 9 July 1943, when the conservatory team returned from Gümüşhacıköy to Merzifon, they filled several more discs with his voice, and this song was recorded in that session, which ran on into 10 July. Its name in the list is "Dembedem", with the note "Muhemmed'den" ("from Muhemmed") added in square brackets; in other words, the collectors attributed the words to a poet of that name. The notation written by İsmet Akyol entered the TRT repertoire as no. 2710, and the repertoire records Merzifon as its district.

Catalogue Data

  • TRT repertoire no.: 2710, kırık hava; subject love
  • Region: Amasya, Merzifon
  • Source performer: Âşık Musa Aslan (also the performer)
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory
  • Collection: the night of 9 to 10 July 1943, Merzifon; in the conservatory list as "Dembedem [Muhemmed'den]", disc 1137/A-3
  • Transcribed by: İsmet Akyol
  • Mode: Uşşak scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: 10/8+7/8
  • Words and music: the words in the notation carry no pen name; the 1943 list ascribes them to a poet named "Muhemmed"
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 2710. There is no official TRT page; the catalogue data and lyrics are on Repertükül.

Lyrics

(Hey) Dem be dem garşıma gelen (bülbül bülbül bülbül bülbül)
Aklımı başımdan alan (bülbül)
Serimi sevdaya salan (ey bülbül oy bülbül bülbül oy)
Gözü gaşı gara bülbül
Yari gördüm otağında (bülbül bülbül bülbül)
Severim hublar çağında (bülbül)
Cennetin Firdevs bağında (ey bülbül oy bülbül bülbül)
Var gülünü ara bülbül

According to the glossary of the notation, dem be dem means now and then, ser the head, hub beautiful, and Firdevs the garden of paradise. Garşı, gaşı and gara are local pronunciations in which the k sound turns into g. The first stanza says, roughly: nightingale with black eyes and brows, who comes before me now and then, who steals my wits and casts my head into love. Here the nightingale seems less the familiar bird of the rose garden than a name given to the beloved; the epithet "black of eye and brow" at the end of the stanza suits a person, not a bird.

In the second stanza the singer has seen the beloved in a tent and tells of loving in the age of beauties, the brightest time of youth. In the last two lines the address changes direction: go to the Firdevs garden of paradise and seek your rose there, nightingale. The line can be understood in two ways. Either the lover is saying that his own rose will be found not on earth but in paradise, or he sees the beloved as so exalted that the only rose worthy of her grows in the garden of heaven.

In form the song is built of eight-syllable lines. The first three lines of each stanza rhyme with one another: gelen, alan, salan; otağında, çağında, bağında. The fourth line ends with the refrain word "bülbül" and ties the two stanzas together. The cries of "bülbül bülbül" and "ey bülbül oy" that come between the lines hand the weight of the words over to the melody; in the notation these exclamations take up more room than the text itself.

Story

No published record was found of how the song came about or for whom it was made. The note "Muhemmed'den" in the 1943 list says that the words belong to a poet, but the catalogue does not explain who this poet was, when he lived or whether he had any tie to Amasya. The absence of a pen name in the two stanzas of the notation suggests that a final stanza naming the poet may not have been sung during collection, or not taken into the notation; no document confirms this.

Musical Features

The metre is the song's most distinctive feature. Nail Demircioğlu examines the eight Uşşak-type songs among the 48 Amasya songs in the TRT repertoire in a separate table and gives the rhythm of this one as 10/8; only one of the eight works is in this metre, the others being in 2/4 or 4/4. The repertoire data, however, write the usul as 10/8+7/8; the tune moves through two limping measures in succession. Haluk Yücel's metre table also shows the song in the 10/8 column. The scale is Uşşak, the final and closing note La. Its six notes lie between La and the Fa above; according to Demircioğlu the tune never goes down to the low Sol, the leading note of the Uşşak scale. A narrow range combined with a long, limping metre gives the lines, stretched out by their cries, a movement close to that of a dance.

Performers and Recordings

Musa Aslan's 1943 recording remains the only documented performance of the song. In the same session that night the âşık also sang "Bahçaya Getirdi" (TRT 2701, "Bahçeye Getirdi Bir Canan Bizi"), "Kaval Havası", "Eşref ile Zöhre" and "Felek Şad Olacak Günün Görmedim" (TRT 1029). The conservatory list contains exactly twenty pieces taken from his voice in Merzifon between 7 and 10 July. No audio file accompanies the notation published online, and the provincial culture directorate has put out no recording of this tune. None of the sources consulted for this page mentions a recording by a later performer. The other melodies of the region are treated together in the general article on Amasya folk songs.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources