All five quatrains end on the same word: "kaybettik", we have lost. In this song Âşık Bendemi turns his reproach on his own age; he counts how, ever since humanity left its path, its core, its word, its mercy and its smiling face have been lost. Words and tune are both his. The song passed into notation from the âşık's own singing during Erkan Demirtaş and Berkay Gençer's fieldwork in Merzifon, work backed by the EU-supported CultureCIVIC programme. Repertükül keeps it as no. 2091; TRT has no counterpart.

Catalogue Data

  • Archive no.: Repertükül archive 2091, not a TRT number
  • Region: Amasya, Merzifon
  • Source person: not shown separately; the recording was taken from the composer, who is also the performer
  • Collected and notated by: Erkan Demirtaş, Berkay Gençer
  • Date of collection: not in the record
  • Modal scale: Hüseyni; final and closing note A (La)
  • Rhythm: 4/4
  • Range: A to G, seven notes
  • Subject: reproach (sitem)
  • Words and music: Âşık Bendemi
  • Source link: for the details and lyrics of this piece, which is not in the TRT repertoire, see the Repertükül archive

Lyrics

Of the five "kaybettik" quatrains only the first appears below. Bendemi sang these words to the collectors himself, and since no date of death has been published for him, the text counts as his copyright.

İnsanlık çığrından çıktı çıkalı
Umuru kaçırdık özü kaybettik
Nefret gönül kalemizi yıkalı
Hoş kelamı tattık sözü kaybettik

"Çığır" means a path or track: since humanity left its path we have lost the thread of things and lost our core; since hatred tore down the fortress of the heart we have tasted fine words but lost the word itself. In the following quatrains the minstrel carries the same complaint through other images. The wolf has turned into a dragon and got into the fold; the sheep has perished, the lamb is lost. Selfishness rules the mind and the head, the dry wheat stays damp, humanity loses the war. Malice makes room for itself, mercy is forgotten, regard is erased. In the last quatrain, where the pen name appears, Bendemi says love is needed for this impossible affair: spring has frozen over, summer has turned to winter, and the sweetly smiling face is gone.

Story

No record has been published telling on what occasion or when the song was written. The text does not refer to a particular person or event; the reproach is aimed at a general moral decline. The collection data give no date either.

Musical Features

It is a four-beat melody in the Hüseyni scale, coming to rest on A. The range spreads from A to G over seven notes; compared with the four-note "Muhammed Ali'yi Candan Sevenler", collected under the same programme, it is a wide one. As there is no published analysis based on the score, nothing more can be said about the inner structure of the melody.

Performers and Recordings

The song's only known rendering is the one Bendemi gave the collectors. Another work by Âşık Bendemi was collected in the same series: "Ahu Perçemine Kül Ettin Beni", whose quatrains end with the phrase "hasret-ül nar". No information was found on the song being sung or released by other performers.

To read these Merzifon recordings of Bendemi and his fellow âşıks against the province's repertoire as a whole: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources