"Oğlan ne sallanıyon / Zerdali dalı mısın": the song opens with a girl teasing a young man who sways as he walks and keeps turning to look at her, and she asks him, "are you in love with me?" Necdet Kurt collected and notated it from the singing of Orhan Dişli of Yeşilöz, a village in the central district of Amasya. The words are anonymous. The song did not enter the TRT repertoire; Repertükül keeps it as no. 746, a number that does not belong to TRT.

Catalogue Data

  • Archive no.: Repertükül archive 746 (not a TRT number)
  • Region: Amasya, Yeşilöz village (central district)
  • Source person: Orhan Dişli, who is also the performer
  • Collected and notated by: Necdet Kurt
  • Date of collection: not in the record
  • Modal scale: Hüseyni; final and closing note A (La)
  • Rhythm: 4/4
  • Range: lowest note A, highest G
  • Subject: love and longing
  • Words and music: anonymous; the notation was taken from the source person
  • Source link: as there is no TRT record, see the Repertükül notation record for details and lyrics

Lyrics

The words are given as in the record, put from capitals into lower case. Each quatrain is followed by the refrain "Yâr oğlan oğlan oğlan".

Oğlan ne sallanıyon
Zerdali dalı mısın
Dönüp dönüp bakıyon
Benden sevdalı mısın
Yar oğlan oğlan oğlan
Armut dalda asılsın
Aslan yarim nasılsın
İkimizin sevdası
Gazelteye basılsın
Yar oğlan oğlan oğlan

"Sallanıyon" and "bakıyon" are the local forms of "you sway" and "you look". The girl compares the boy to an apricot branch swaying in the wind and asks why he sways like that and keeps turning to look at her, and wonders whether he is in love with her. In the second quatrain the first two lines only set up the sound for what follows: let the pear hang on the branch; my lion of a love, how are you? The wish in the last two lines is the most memorable part of the song: let the love of the two of them be printed in the newspaper, that is, let it be as open as the news everyone hears. "Gazelte" is the folk pronunciation of "gazete", newspaper.

Story

Where the song was first sung, and for whom, no publication records. The appearance of the word "newspaper" ties the present form of the text to a time when newspapers were known in the villages, but this says nothing about when the song was first composed. The record does not give the year of collection either.

Musical Features

It is a metred song in the Hüseyni scale, in four beats, coming to rest on A. The melody rises from A to the G just below the octave; the range field in the record is left empty. The short seven-syllable lines and the "oğlan oğlan oğlan" refrain repeated after each quatrain give the song a teasing delivery close to that of a dance tune. No analysis of the score has come to light in print.

Performers and Recordings

The voice behind the notation is Orhan Dişli's. Necdet Kurt's name also appears in the same archive on another piece linked to Yeşilöz: the lament "Ele Verdim Ele Verdim", for which he wrote both words and tune. No record was found of later singers or of releases on disc.

For a general look at Amasya's folk songs, see The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Online sources