The card gave this deyiş nothing more than the name of a greeting, "Merhaba"; the words themselves begin with the line "Perişan göynümü sen inşad ettin". It is the first of four pieces that Mehmet Hulusi Er of the village of Uygur sang to his saz in Zigala on 5 July 1943. "Kızılırmak", which follows it, in time entered the TRT repertoire, whereas neither the words nor the melody of this deyiş have reached any publication.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not found in the Amasya section of the TRT repertoire
  • Source person: Mehmet Hulusi Er (saz; born Rumi 1320, i.e. 1904-1905; farmer; central Amasya, Ezine subdistrict, village of Uygur)
  • Place and date of collection: village of Zigala (today Aydınca), 5 July 1943 (place in square brackets in the catalogue)
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Genre: deyiş
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: registered as anonymous
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1108/B-1
  • Source publication and link: Kaya's catalogue, no. 3591; full text of the thesis. There is no TRT link

Lyrics

Perişan göynümü sen inşad ettin

"Göynüm" is the local pronunciation of "gönlüm", "my heart". The spelling "inşad" can be resolved in two ways: read as "inşa ettin", the line means "you rebuilt my scattered heart"; the reading "irşad ettin" (you guided it to the right path), from the language of the Sufi orders, also fits the sentence. The spelling on the card does not settle which was meant; in both readings the line addresses someone directly as "you". The sound recording is on disc 1108 of the Folklore Archive, at the beginning of side B.

Story

To whom this deyiş named after a greeting belongs, and on what occasion it was sung, are unknown; no account of its making was ever recorded. The list of performers gives brief information on the singer: Er was a farmer, he used his saz in the recording, and nothing about his teacher is written in the notes column. Davut Aslan and Mehmet İnan, who sang in the same village on the same day, were like him from the Ezine subdistrict, but came from the village of Girap.

Musical Features

Mode and metre are not indicated. Side A of the disc was filled with Hüseyin Kılıç's songs and halays, and side B was left to Er. The card for the place after "Merhaba", 1108/B-2, is not among the TRT copies, so its content is unknown; third comes Er's "Kızılırmak". The singer's "Peygamberin Medhiyesi (Mersiye)" occupies the first two places on disc 1109, followed by the song "Bayburt".

Performers and Recordings

No recording beyond Er's disc lets Merhaba be heard. "Kızılırmak", which he sang the same day, entered the TRT repertoire as Allah Allah Dedik Ata Bindirdik, and the song Bayburt is also described on the site. Hüseyin Kılıç's song that opens side A of the disc, İnce Çayır Biçilmez, is in the repertoire too. The deyiş collected in Zigala are brought together with the other melodies of Amasya by The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources