In this song death and separation stand side by side like two separate enemies, and each stanza closes with a complaint against them: "ölümünen ayrılığın elinden", "at the hands of death and separation". The repertoire data give its subject as gurbet, life far from home, and the first line is indeed the voice of someone who has fallen into a strange land: since I have come to these parts, I wander them. Âşık Musa Aslan sang the song in Merzifon on 8 July 1943, at the end of a long series he performed one after another that day, and one whole side of a conservatory disc was given to this piece alone. The notation written by İsmet Akyol entered the TRT repertoire as no. 2721. Among the 48 Amasya songs examined by Nail Demircioğlu, it is the only one in the Nikriz scale.

Catalogue Data

  • TRT repertoire no.: 2721, kırık hava; subject gurbet (life away from home)
  • Region: Amasya, Merzifon
  • Source performer: Âşık Musa Aslan (also the performer)
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory
  • Collection: 8 July 1943, Merzifon; in the conservatory list as "Gelmiş iken", first line "Gelmiş iken bu elleri gezeyim", disc 1131/A
  • Transcribed by: İsmet Akyol
  • Mode: Nikriz scale; final and closing note Sol
  • Metre: free-rhythm opening, then 2/4
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 2721; there is no official TRT page, the catalogue data and lyrics are on Repertükül.

Lyrics

(Ah) Gelmiş iken bu elleri gezerim
Ölüm ile ayrılığın elinden (efendim ey ey)
Dertli yok ki şu derdimi yazayım
Ölümünen ayrılığın elinden (efendim ey ey)
(Ah) Ölüm yolu üstümüze uğrattı
Ciğerimi doğuz doğuz doğrattı (efendim ey ey)
Ayrılık da yaşın yaşın ağlattı
Ölümünen ayrılığın elinden (efendim ey ey)

The notation glosses a single expression: yaşın yaşın means secretly, inwardly. Ölümünen is the local form of "ölüm ile", "with death", and it stands just before the refrain word "elinden" that closes each of the two stanzas of eleven-syllable lines. In plain prose the first stanza says: since I have come to these lands, I wander them, at the hands of death and separation; there is no one as grieved as I to whom I might write my grief, at the hands of death and separation. "Writing" in the line is closer to pouring out or telling one's sorrow than to writing a letter.

The second stanza ties the pain to an event: death turned its road towards us and cut my liver to pieces; separation made me weep in secret. The notation offers no gloss for the doubled word "doğuz doğuz". Since it echoes the verb "doğrattı", "had it chopped", which follows it, it may have been used in the sense of piece by piece, in shreds; this is a guess. In the stanza death and separation share out their tasks: one chops the liver, the other makes the tears flow in secret. The classification of the subject as gurbet may point to the song being sung in the voice of someone who has lost a person close to them and fallen into distant lands; the words do not say who died.

Story

It is not known whose death or which parting the song was sung about. Neither the published collection notes nor the studies dealing with the song attach any account to this tune. The conservatory list gives only the title and the first line; apart from the first line being written "gezeyim" there and "gezerim" in the notation, the two records show no difference.

Musical Features

The lyrics in the notation are headed "serbest", free: the song opens with an unmetred introduction sung like an uzun hava, a long song, and then moves into 2/4. In the table in which he examines the types of the songs, Haluk Yücel shows this work as one of the two songs that have features of both the uzun hava and the kırık hava; the other is "Sabahtan Uğradım Pir Divanına". The scale is Nikriz. The final and closing note is Sol, and the lowest note is also Sol; from there the tune spreads over nine notes up to the La above the octave. This wide range, opening upwards from the low final, leaves room for the long lines of the free introduction, which begin with the cry "ah". Demircioğlu's table gives the same scale and the 2/4 metre; it does not mention the free introduction separately.

Performers and Recordings

The only known recording is Musa Aslan's performance of 1943. That day in Merzifon the âşık sang "Yolma Havası", "Alem Dertli Olmuş", "Ale Gözlerine" from Kurbanî, a kavrama havası also known as "Niğdeli Gelin", "Selâm Verdik ve Cevabı" (TRT 1816), two pieces from the Köroğlu cycle, "Türkiyemiz Şeref Buldu" and "Giderem Vana Doğru"; in the catalogue order "Gelmiş iken" follows this series. The online copy of the repertoire notation consists only of the notation and lyrics and contains no recording. No singer who recorded the song after Musa Aslan turned up in the sources searched. Amasya's other works in the TRT repertoire are described together in the article folk songs and long songs of the Yeşilırmak valley.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources