The song's name speaks of the river running through the city by its colour: "Yeşil akar Amasya'nın ırmağı" (green flows the river of Amasya). Haluk Yücel's 2018 study of the lyrical and musical elements of Amasya folk songs counts the piece among the measured songs. In the metre table, however, its mark falls in the column where Yücel gathers 9/8 and 9/4 under a single heading; so it is clear that the song is in a nine-beat metre, but whether it is written in quavers or crotchets cannot be read from the table.

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; it is not registered under the Amasya region in the TRT repertoire
  • Region: Amasya
  • Genre: kırık hava, a measured song (Table 5, p. 380)
  • Metre: 9/8 or 9/4 (Table 6, p. 384; the two metres share a column)
  • Makam (mode): not stated
  • Source person, collector, date of collection: unknown
  • Words and music: no author is shown
  • Source publication: Haluk Yücel 2018
  • Link: there is no TRT link; Yücel's article

Lyrics

The known line tells the colour of the river; the river of Amasya is the Yeşilırmak, the Green River, and the phrase "yeşil akar" (flows green) in the song's name matches the river's name. Beyond that nothing is known: neither the rest of the line nor the score of the tune is found in published collections.

Its Story

What lay behind the song naming the river is not known; no written record of its making has been found.

Musical Features

In his conclusion Yücel counts 12 songs in 9/8 and ranks this metre third after 4/4 and 2/4. Because the column also covers 9/4, whether this song is one of those twelve is not certain. In the table the song just above it, "Yeşil hıyar soyulmaz", and the one below, "Keşkeği vur fırına", are in 4/4. There is no piece-by-piece information on mode or range.

Performers and Recordings

No documented singer of this song is known. The river's name appears in another row of Yücel's list as well: "Yeşilırmak ne akarsın boşuna" (Yeşilırmak, why do you flow in vain). It is entered in the table as a separate piece, and its metre is 5/8. The general article that bears the river's name treats all the melodies of Amasya together: The Melody of Yeşilırmak: Amasya Folk Songs and Long Songs.

Bibliography

Online sources