Camels grazing across the way, someone sitting down to milk a cow, and a bridge that cannot be crossed: "Karşıdadır Evleri" ("Her Houses Are Across the Way") builds all it has to say from these few images. Two separate vocal refrains are attached to each line of its seven-syllable manis; "Hele yandım" ("Oh, how I burn") is sung at the end of the odd lines and "Diley diley sallan da gel" ("Come swaying, diley diley") at the end of the even ones. The song entered the TRT Turkish Folk Music repertoire as number 51. It was collected and transcribed by Yücel Paşmakçı, whose name also appears in the Amasya repertoire in the record of "Halay Çekin Düzülsün". How it sits among the region's other songs is described in our article on the folk songs and long airs of Amasya.

Catalogue Record

  • Repertoire no.: 51, TRT Turkish Folk Music kırık hava
  • Region: Amasya
  • Source performer: Yöre Ekibi (regional ensemble)
  • Collected and transcribed by: Yücel Paşmakçı
  • Date of collection: not on record
  • Makam: Hüseyni; final and closing note A
  • Usul (metre): 2/4
  • Range: from G to E, 6 notes
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: as TRT has not published an online record for this work, the repertoire details are taken from Repertükül, https://www.repertukul.com/KARSIDADIR-EVLERI-51
  • Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism audio recording: http://webtvpanel.kultur.gov.tr/WebTV_Contents/Publish/21092017144907/14ikarsidadirievleri.mp3

Lyrics

Karşıdadır evleri (Hele yandım)
Yayılır develeri (Diley diley sallan da gel)
Oturmuş inek sağar (Hele yandım)
Terlemiş sineleri (Diley diley sallan da gel)
Köprüden geçemiyom (Hele yandım)
Düş gördüm seçemiyom (Diley diley sallan da gel)
Sen benden geçtin amma (Hele yandım)
Ben senden geçemiyom (Diley diley sallan da gel)

In English: My beloved's houses are across the way, the camels spread out as they graze. Someone sits milking a cow, the breast damp with sweat. I cannot cross the bridge; I had a dream and cannot make it out. You have given me up, but I cannot give you up.

The glossary explains only two words: "sine" means breast, and "geçmek" means to leave, to give up. The whole subtlety of the second quatrain lies in this second sense. The same verb describes crossing the bridge in the first line and giving up the beloved in the last two; the bridge thus becomes a concrete sign of the distance between the two houses. The glossary gives no meaning for the refrain "diley diley". The sense that emerges from the text is a call to the beloved to come swaying, but this reading is not certain.

Its Story

The source-performer line of the record carries "Yöre Ekibi", a regional ensemble, instead of a name. This suggests that the melody was transcribed from a group performing on behalf of the region, and it leaves open who first sang it. Nor does any publication tell how the song was composed.

Musical Features

Hüseyni is the scale most used in the Amasya repertoire, and this song follows it: by Demircioğlu's count, eighteen of the 48 songs are hüseyni, roughly two in every five. Moving in a 2/4 usul, the melody settles and ends on A. It stays within only six notes, from low G up to E; this narrow range makes it well suited to group singing. The refrains attached to the seven-syllable lines nearly double the length of each line of text, and it is these refrains that stay in the memory.

In the tables in which Haluk Yücel classified the folk songs of Amasya by genre and metre in 2018, the song is cited together with its refrain, as "Karşıdadır evleri hele yandım".

Performers and Recordings

The performer in the Repertükül record is Salih Turhan, and the page also holds an audio file labelled "günümüz yorumu", a present-day rendering. In the recording titled "Karşıdadır Evleri" that the Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism has published among the region's songs, the singer goes unnamed. No other record or album is documented.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources