"Höngül de höngül höngül höngül de": this cry, slipped into the middle of the lines, carries the steps of the tune more than the meaning of the words, and the team's disc list names the song after it, "Höngül Höngül". Sung by Mustafa Saçlı, the song was recorded on 4 July 1943, the conservatory's first working day in Amasya. The notation, which entered the TRT repertoire as no. 2867, was written by Azize Gürses; among the works credited to Amasya in the repertoire there is no other notation bearing her name. The words consist of two three-line stanzas and a two-line refrain, and play out at a spring between a girl filling her jug and a young man who keeps teasing her.

Catalogue Data

  • TRT repertoire no.: 2867, kırık hava; subject love
  • Region: Amasya
  • Source performer: Mustafa Saçlı (also the performer)
  • Collected by: Ankara State Conservatory
  • Collection: 4 July 1943, Amasya (the catalogue gives the place in square brackets, as an estimate); title in the list "Höngül Höngül", disc 1105/B-3
  • Transcribed by: Azize Gürses
  • Mode: Karcığar scale; final and closing note La
  • Metre: 9/8
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: TRT repertoire no. 2867. As TRT has no public page for individual works, the catalogue data and lyrics are given via Repertükül.

Lyrics

Kız pınar başında testi de doldurur
Testinin kulpuna (höngül de höngül höngül höngül de) şahin kondurur
Kız senin yan bakışın insanı öldürür
Bağlantı:
Lengo lengo lengo (höngül de höngül höngül) dayanamıyom gayrı
Geceleri yalınız yatamıyorum gayrı
Kız pınarın başında harmanın mı var
Sırmanın telinden yorganın mı var
Beni öldürmeye fermanın mı var
(Bağlantı)

The image of the first stanza is plain: the girl fills her jug at the spring and sets a falcon on the jug's handle; your sidelong glance kills a man, girl. The notation gives no explanation of "setting a falcon". It may describe a jug whose handle is worked in the shape of a bird, or it may be a comparison for some grace in the way the girl holds the jug; the sources are silent on this. The three lines share one rhyme: doldurur, kondurur, öldürür.

The second stanza turns to teasing and proceeds by three questions: the young man asks whether the girl has a threshing floor at the spring, whether she has a quilt of gold thread, whether she carries a decree to kill him. Sırma is fine thread gilded with gold or silver; a quilt of sırma calls to mind one of the showiest pieces of a trousseau. The refrain, by contrast, is a plea: I cannot bear it any longer, I cannot sleep alone at night any longer. Neither the notation nor any other source gives the meaning of "lengo"; like "höngül", it is most probably a cry sung for its sound rather than its sense. "Dayanamıyom" and "yalınız" carry the trace of the local dialect.

Story

No account is on record of who the girl at the spring or the young man addressing her might have been. The catalogue information for the 1943 collection consists of title, first line, place and date; the later studies dealing with the song do not relate a story of its making either. The scene in the words is the familiar scene of songs addressed to girls drawing water at a spring, and it can be understood without being tied to an event.

Musical Features

In the notation the cry splits the line down the middle: in the first line it comes after the word kulpuna, the words break off halfway, and the line, cut in two, is spread over the long cycle of the 9/8. In the refrain the same cry follows the exclamation "lengo lengo lengo". The scale is Karcığar, the metre 9/8; both final and closing note are La, and the tune moves through nine notes between the low Sol and the La an octave above. Nail Demircioğlu's table listing 48 Amasya songs does not depart from the notation in scale or metre. Haluk Yücel, for his part, files the song with the kırık hava and sets it beside the 9/8 works in his metre table.

Performers and Recordings

The singer who put the song on disc in 1943 was the source performer Mustafa Saçlı; that is the documented performance. That day in Amasya Saçlı sang another song beginning "Kuşköprünün ufacıktır taşları"; in the list this recording follows directly, as the last piece on the same side of the disc. No recording has been added to the copy of the notation online. Another text of the words in circulation gives the song the title "Kız Pınar Başında Testi De Doldurur", repeating the cries in every line. No artist who later recorded the song on disc or album appears in the publications examined. For Amasya's melodies as a whole, see the general article of the section.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources