The line "Eminem dam üstünde bulgur seriyor" is the only fragment of text to survive from this folk song, recorded on disc in Merzifon on 8 July 1943. The singer was Yakup Sancak, whose name appears in the conservatory catalogue's index of performers with this recording alone; Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and Rıza Yetişen took no other piece from him during their Amasya journey. The song was never taken into the TRT repertoire, nor were its words or notation ever printed.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place of collection: Merzifon
  • Source person: Yakup Sancak
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Date of collection: 8 July 1943
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu (İTÜ, 2014), recording list no. 3685
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive of the Ankara State Conservatory (today the State Conservatory of Hacettepe University), disc 1128/B-1
  • Genre: folk song (türkü)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Source link: there is no TRT page; the details are in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

Eminem dam üstünde bulgur seriyor

"My Emine is spreading bulgur on the roof." "Eminem" is an affectionate form of the name Emine: my Emine. The "dam" here is the flat earthen roof of a village house; boiled wheat was spread out on such roofs to dry before it became bulgur. The line seems to be spoken by someone who catches sight of the girl he loves on the roof in the middle of her household work, but what follows is unknown.

The picture of Emine on the roof breaks off with this line. Kaya carried every standard detail of the cards into his catalogue but deliberately left out the lyrics, and the remaining lines appear in no published text. The full text can only be sought on the duplicate of the card made for TRT in the 1970s. Sancak's voice is on side B of disc 1128 in the Folklore Archive.

Collections and Variants

Many pieces named "Emine" or "Eminem" were recorded on the conservatory's journeys: among them are those beginning "Eminemin çeşmeleri mercandan" in Bozkır in 1940, "Eminemin göçü aştı yayladan" in Bünyan in 1941, and "Gine bahar geldi bulanıḫ siller" in Niğde, also in 1941. None of their first lines matches the Merzifon recording; all they share is the beloved's name. A more distant echo can be heard in the title "Dama Bulgur Sererler" (They Spread Bulgur on the Roof) among the 1937 recordings from Erzincan. Since that card gives no first line, it cannot be told whether the two pieces are connected.

Story

The catalogue's list of performers says a little about the singer: Yakup Sancak was a civil servant from Merzifon, born in the Rumi year 1305 (1889-1890) according to the card, and the notes column records that he was a hafız, one who knows the Qur'an by heart. Whom the song was made for, and what about, is told in no publication.

Musical Features

Disc 1128 itself has a small gap. The cards for its side A are not among the copies held at TRT; the catalogue leaves the two entries for that side untitled and shows their disc numbers in parentheses. On side B, immediately after "Emine", Âşık Musa Aslan's song "Alem Dertli Olmuş" was recorded. Of the tune's musical structure, on the other hand, no data survives.

Performers and Recordings

No one who sang the song after Sancak, or put it on record or cassette, is named in the available publications; beyond the 1943 disc no performance is known. Merzifon's songs that passed into the TRT repertoire are the subject, together with the province's whole stock of melodies, of The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources