The conservatory team's 1943 disc list names this song by its refrain before its first line: "Uyanamıyom". The words "Uyanamıyom anam, dayanamıyom", returning after every quatrain, are the complaint of someone who can see the beloved's houses from afar but cannot reach them. Taken down in Amasya on 6 July 1943 from Mehmet Kemeroğlu, the song carries number 4595 in the TRT repertoire; according to the repertoire data, the source performer's village was Bağlıca. Among the 48 Amasya songs in the repertoire, the tune is one of only two written in the Çargâh scale.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: TRT Turkish Folk Music repertoire 4595 (kırık hava section)
  • Region: Amasya, Bağlıca village
  • Source performer: Mehmet Kemeroğlu, who is also the performer
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory (Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, Rıza Yetişen)
  • Date of collection: 6 July 1943; in the conservatory catalogue no. 3632, disc 1115/B-2, titled "Uyanamıyom: Evleri görünüyor"
  • Transcribed by: Altan Demirel
  • Mode: Çargâh scale; final and closing note Do
  • Metre: 9/8
  • Range: Si to Fa, five notes
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: TRT has no open repertoire page giving individual works their own address; the data and lyrics of score no. 4595 are on Repertükül.

Lyrics

Evleri görünüyor
Gönüldür yeriniyor ey
Çekilecek dert değil
Mevlam sabır veriyor
Uyanamıyom anam
Dayanamıyom
Yemenimin yeşili
Ben bulamam eşini ey
Ayrılan kavuşmaz mı
Sil gözünün yaşını
Uyanamıyom anam
Dayanamıyom
Evleri yol üstüdür
Kemeri bel üstüdür
Her gün gel geç buradan
Koy desinler dostudur
Uyanamıyom anam
Dayanamıyom

"Yerinmek" means to grieve over something missing, to long for it: the houses are in sight, and the heart suffers at not being able to go there. The pain is more than one can bear, yet God grants patience. The second quatrain shifts the voice. To someone who cannot find a match for the green of her headscarf, that is, cannot find another like the one she loves, comfort is offered: "do those who part never meet again? wipe the tears from your eyes." Whether this voice speaks to a mother, to the beloved, or is the singer addressing himself, the text does not say. In the last quatrain the houses stand by the road. The next line, "kemeri bel üstüdür", can be understood in two ways: the arch of the house stands on the shoulder of a slope, or the beloved's belt sits at the waist. What is asked of the beloved is to pass that way every day so that onlookers will say "he is her friend". An apparently casual walk along a road thus becomes a closeness everyone knows about.

In the refrain, "uyanamıyom" literally means "I cannot wake up". It rhymes with "dayanamıyom", "I cannot bear it", and may describe the lover who cannot shake off a sleep or a daze. The score writes the word this way, and the collection slip has the same form; there is no record of whether it is a spoken variant of "uyuyamıyom", "I cannot sleep".

Story

No source tells from whose lips, or over which parting, the song first came; the slip makes no note on this either.

Musical Features

According to the repertoire data, the tune moves within the five notes between Si and Fa, settles on Do and ends on Do. In Nail Demircioğlu's table of modes, Çargâh is represented by two songs: no. 4595, "Evleri Görünüyor", and "Meryem Suya Gidiyor" from Gümüşhacıköy. In a repertoire dominated by Hüseynî and Uşşak tunes resting on La, this small tune with its final on Do has a colour of its own.

Its metre is 9/8; in Demircioğlu's count, 9/8 is the second most frequent metre in the Amasya repertoire after 4/4, with nine songs. The quatrains are of seven syllables, and the two-line refrain after each one is a fixed point the tune returns to as it passes from one quatrain to the next. The exclamation "ey" at the end of the second line occurs in the first two quatrains and drops out in the third.

Performers and Recordings

The only documented performance is that of the source performer. The catalogue's performer entries place Mehmet Kemeroğlu in the village of Bağlıca in central Amasya; in the catalogue's comparison table with the TRT repertoire his surname appears as "Keremoğlu". The repertoire data record it as Kemeroğlu. In the catalogue his name is linked to this piece alone. No later singer of the song, and no published disc, turned up in the publications consulted.

Collections and Variants

The same catalogue records another piece opening with the line "Evleri görünüyor": "Bağ Altına (Oyun Havası)", taken down in Elazığ on 24 July 1944 from a group made up of Saim and Sami Çötelioğlu, Şükrü Canaydın, Sıtkı Demirci and Asım Özdemir. A shared first line alone is not enough to call the two pieces related, and the catalogue does not give the words or tune of the Elazığ recording. Amasya's folk songs as a whole are surveyed in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources