Three townsmen sang this song onto disc together in Amasya: the haberdasher Abdullah Çakırer, the municipal clerk Muhlis Orçun and the dyer Muharrem Sorgu, who played the violin in the recording. Its first line on the card is "Mendilim var mendilden". Belonging to the conservatory team's first day in the town, 4 July 1943, the recording fell into the last place on side B of a disc that had begun to be filled in Zile two days earlier. The song did not enter the TRT repertoire, and its words have not been printed.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Source persons: Abdullah Çakırer (born Rumi 1320, i.e. 1904-1905; haberdasher), Muhlis Orçun (born Rumi 1326, i.e. 1910-1911; municipal clerk), Muharrem Sorgu (violin; born Rumi 1321, i.e. 1905-1906; dyer); all three from central Amasya
  • Place and date of collection: Amasya, 4 July 1943 (place and date in square brackets in the catalogue)
  • Collected by: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen and the technician Rıza Yetişen (Ankara State Conservatory)
  • Genre: folk song (türkü)
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1104/B-4
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3572; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Mendilim var mendilden

The words of the line ("I have a handkerchief, of handkerchief") are understandable in today's language too; yet what "mendilden" refers to, whether it sets one handkerchief apart from another or opens a rhyme or a mani, cannot be said without the continuation. No notation has been published anywhere either. The sound recording is on disc 1104 of the Folklore Archive; the first line in the catalogue was read from the copy of the card at TRT.

Story

No tradition about the making of the song has been recorded. What is known is the team's journey: after working in Tokat, Reşadiye, Niksar and Zile, they reached Amasya on 4 July. Side A of disc 1104 had been filled on 2 July in Zile with "Şu Gelen Göçe Benzer", "Alim" and "Limon Attım", taken from Ahmet Temiz, and side B was used two days later in Amasya. According to Kaya, the unused part of a disc was taken up by later recordings; this is why a few days can separate the first and last recordings on one disc.

Musical Features

Mode and metre were not written down; the instruments, however, are partly known. In the list of performers an instrument is entered only for Muharrem Sorgu, and that is the violin. The instrument column is empty on the lines of Çakırer and Orçun; one may conclude that these two sang the song and Sorgu accompanied them on the violin, but the card does not state how the voices were divided. On side B of the disc the song is preceded by three tunes that Sorgu played with Sabri Tınaztepe: "Üsküp", "Paçalı" and "Sarhoş Havası".

Performers and Recordings

The handkerchief song does not appear to have been recorded again after this 1943 performance by the trio. "Amasya Dağları", with which the same three men opened the next disc, entered the TRT repertoire as Amasya'nın Dağları, and the third recording by Çakırer and Orçun is also in the repertoire as Çakallar'dan İner Vermiş Kömürü. Sorgu and Tınaztepe's Paçalı is among the tunes that passed to TRT as well. The place of the town songs among all the melodies of the region is described in The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources