The card writes the poem's author into the title: "Karacaoğlandan", that is, from a poem by Karacaoğlan. Mehmet İnan, who sang this piece for the collecting team on 5 July 1943 in the village of Zigala, today called Aydınca, made eight recordings with Davut Aslan that day but sang this deyiş alone. What survives of the deyiş is the first line written on the card; neither its other lines nor a notation of its melody has been published.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Place and date of collection: Zigala (Aydınca) village, central Amasya; 5 July 1943
  • Source person: Mehmet İnan; in the index of performers his home is the village of Girap in central Amasya
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Published source: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu (İTÜ, 2014), no. 3602
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1110/A-3
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: words by Karacaoğlan according to the title; melody anonymous
  • Source link: there is no TRT link; the details are in Kaya's catalogue

Lyrics

Şurda bir yavruya meyil aldırdım

In folk poetry "yavru" means a young beauty, a beloved; "meyil aldırmak" is to lose one's heart, to be drawn to someone. The line is understood as "Over there I lost my heart to a beauty." The catalogue does not state which of Karacaoğlan's koşma this is. Kaya writes that he deliberately left the lyrics on the cards out of his lists; the rest of the text Mehmet İnan sang, if it was noted down, is on the card and has not been printed in any book or catalogue. The copy of the card at TRT and disc 1110 in the conservatory's Folklore Archive are the two known carriers of the deyiş; in the years Kaya worked on it, the archive at Hacettepe University was closed to research.

Story

From whom İnan, who came from Girap, learned this Karacaoğlan koşma, and by what road the deyiş reached Zigala, went unrecorded.

Musical Features

As for the melody, the only thing the catalogue yields is its position on the disc: on side A of 1110 two of Davut Aslan's semah, "Gönüller Semahı" and "Kırklar Semahı", were recorded first, and this deyiş was placed at the end of the side, third in order. Side B continues with pieces the two performers sang together.

Performers and Recordings

No recording of the deyiş in any voice but İnan's has come to light. Two recordings on the same disc entered the TRT repertoire: Davut Aslan's Gönüller Semahı took the name Yüce Dağ Başında Koyun Güderken, and "Sarcalan Köyünden Molla Mustafa ve Oğlu", which opens side B, passed into the repertoire as Değirmen Önünde Bir Böyük Tarla. The name Karacaoğlan also occurs on other cards from the region that summer: "Sümmanî'den (Karacaoğlan)", sung by Hüseyin Onkar in Merzifon, later entered TRT as Eğlen Sana Bir Nasihat Edeyim, and Bektaş Yıldız's Beypazarı recording in Gümüşhacıköy opens with the line "Gezdür Garacoğlan gır atı gezdür". For an overall view of the melodies of the Amasya region, The Melody of Yeşilırmak may be read.

Bibliography

Online sources