"Tek Kapıdan Çıktım Yüzüm Peçeli" ("I Stepped Out of a Single Door, My Face Veiled") carries the lowest number among the kırık hava, the metred folk songs, that entered the TRT Turkish Folk Music repertoire from the Amasya region: it is number 5, and its subject is recorded as a lament (ağıt). Although it is a lament, it is not a free-rhythm uzun hava but a song sung in a measured 2/4 metre. Two proper names occur in its lyrics: "Hulusi", with a lock of hair falling across his brow, and Helvacı, a settlement close to the town. These two names suggest that the song was composed after a particular death, but no published source says whose death it was. The Melody of the Yeşilırmak, our overview of Amasya's melodies, also names it among the examples chosen from the regional repertoire.

Catalogue Record

  • TRT Turkish Folk Music repertoire no.: 5 (kırık hava)
  • Region: Amasya (no district or village given)
  • Source performer: Yöre Ekibi (regional ensemble)
  • Collected by: TRT Ankara Radio, Turkish Folk Music Directorate
  • Transcribed by: Nida Tüfekçi
  • Date of collection: not given in the repertoire record
  • Makam: Hicaz; final and closing note A (la)
  • Usul (metre): 2/4
  • Range: from low A to high A, 8 notes
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • TRT link: since TRT has no public official page for its repertoire works, the record is taken from Repertükül, which reproduces the TRT score: https://www.repertukul.com/TEK-KAPIDAN-CIKTIM-YUZUM-PECELI-5
  • Audio recording (Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Amasya Provincial Directorate of Culture and Tourism): http://webtvpanel.kultur.gov.tr/WebTV_Contents/Publish/21092017142231/02itekikapidan.mp3
  • Other: https://www.turkuyurdu.com/tek-kapidan-ciktim-952.html

Lyrics

The lyrics in the repertoire score consist of three stanzas and a two-line refrain repeated after each stanza:

Tek kapıdan çıktım yüzüm peçeli
Ahbaplar oturmuş iki geçeli (vay vay)
Hulusi'm de alnı sıra perçemli
Neyleyim dünyada dünya malını
Gönül arzediyor eski halini (vay vay)
Dağdan yuvarlandı kayalarımız
Gam ile yoğruldu mayalarımız (vay vay)
N'ola taş doğursaydı analarımız
Mezarımı Helvacı'ya eşsinler
Al yeşili üzerime örtsünler (vay vay)
Gelen geçen yazık olmuş desinler

In English: I put on my veil and stepped out of a single door; the friends sat in two facing rows, and my Hulusi had let his forelock fall across his brow. What use to me is worldly wealth in this world? My heart longs for the way things were. Our rocks came tumbling down the mountain, our very nature was kneaded with grief; would that our mothers had given birth to stones instead. Let them dig my grave at Helvacı, let them spread red and green over me; let all who pass say, "What a pity."

The word list attached to the score explains "geçeli" as each of two facing sides, that is, seated in rows, and gives Helvacı as a settlement seven kilometres from Amasya. "Eşmek" means to dig, and "maya" is the innate essence a person is born with. "N'ola" here is an optative meaning "if only". The line about red and green brings to mind the custom of spreading a cloth over a coffin or a grave, but the sources offer no separate comment on it.

Its Story

Whose voice the lament speaks in can be understood in two ways. Since no published account of its composition has turned up, the text is all there is to go on. In the first stanza the person stepping out veiled is a woman, who sees Hulusi in a gathering of friends; in the last stanza the speaker is the dead person, asking for a grave to be dug at Helvacı. Speaking in the voice of the deceased is a common device in laments, so the last stanza may also have been sung in Hulusi's own words. Who Hulusi was, why he wished to be buried at Helvacı and how he died are unknown. With a "regional ensemble" entered in the record where a source performer's name would stand, the trail back to whoever first sang the lament cannot be followed either.

Musical Features

The lament's melody is in the hicaz scale, which is rare in Amasya's share of the TRT repertoire. In Demircioğlu's count of the region's 48 songs it is limited to four works, while hüseyni, the scale the region uses most, appears in eighteen; the melody of this lament therefore stands apart from the general colour of the repertoire. The metre is 2/4, and Demircioğlu's table gives the same. The melody moves through a full octave from low A to high A, and both settles and ends on A.

The lines have eleven syllables (Tek / ka-pı-dan / çık-tım / yü-züm / pe-çe-li), and each stanza has three lines. A two-line refrain following a three-line stanza gives the song a five-line unit of delivery. The exclamation "vay vay", added to the second line of each stanza and of the refrain, is the only refrain element that carries the mood of lament into the words themselves. Haluk Yücel's 2018 study of Amasya folk songs also counts the lament among the works it covers.

Collections and Variants

The text published on Türkü Yurdu largely matches the repertoire score; the differences are small, but to a careful reader they show how a local idiom shifts. There one reads "Hulusim de" for "Hulusi'm de", "gönül arzu ediyor" for "gönül arzediyor" and "doğuraydı" for "doğursaydı", and the "vay vay" exclamations are not written. The refrain is repeated in full after every stanza.

Performers and Recordings

The performer field in the Repertükül record is left empty. The "Amasya Türküleri" page run by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism's directorate in Amasya has an audio file titled "Tek Kapıdan", but it does not say who sings. No documented information has been found on any artist who has put the lament on record or album.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Official sources

Other sources

Online sources