The piece sung for the team in Amasya on 4 July 1943 by Osman Samsun, a fireman, was written on the card under the heading "Bozuk"; in its first line the singer likens himself to a lump of snow on the top of a high mountain. An eight-line text opening with almost the same line, only with the word "ciz" in place of "top", was published by a folk song collection website, which assigns it to the Amasya region without naming a source person or a collector. This page counts the two witnesses as variants of the same long song and calls the piece by that website's title, "Yüce Dağ Başında Bir Ciz".

Catalogue Data

  • Repertoire no.: none; not registered in the TRT repertoire under the Amasya region
  • Source person: Osman Samsun (born Rumi 1316, fireman, from central Amasya)
  • Place of collection: Amasya (in square brackets in the catalogue)
  • Date of collection: 4 July 1943
  • Collected by: the Ankara State Conservatory team: Halil Bedii Yönetken, Muzaffer Sarısözen, the technician Rıza Yetişen
  • Name and first line on the card: "Bozuk: Yüce dağ başında bir top gar idim"
  • Source publication: Celal Volkan Kaya, Ankara Devlet Konservatuvarı'nın Halk Müziği Alan Araştırmaları Kataloğu, İTÜ, 2014, recording list no. 3580; for the full lyrics, the online Türkü Yurdu collection
  • Location in the archive: Folklore Archive, disc 1106/A-2
  • Genre: long song (uzun hava); "bozuk" on the card
  • Mode, rhythm: not recorded
  • Words and music: anonymous
  • Links: Kaya, 2014; Türkü Yurdu; there is no TRT entry

Lyrics

The anonymous text reads as follows on that website:

Yüce dağ başında bir ciz garidim
Yel vurdu da ufak ufak eridim
Evel muhabbetli yarin ben idim
Şimdi yad ellerden bakan ben oldum

Yüce dağ başında ben de Leyla'yım
Otur yanıma da derdim söyleyim
Halimden bilmedük yari neyleyim
Getme güzelim dön geri gel

In English: I was a (drift of) snow on the high mountain top; the wind struck and I melted little by little; once I was my beloved's dearest companion, now I am the one who looks on from among strangers. In the second stanza the speaker compares himself or herself to Leylâ: sit beside me and let me tell my sorrow; what am I to do with a beloved who does not understand my plight; do not go, my beauty, turn back and come. "Garidim" (kar idim, I was snow), "bilmedük" (bilmedik) and "getme" (gitme, do not go) reflect local pronunciation. The website does not explain the word "ciz" in the first line; on the 1943 card the word "top" stands in its place. The rest of what Samsun sang has not been published; only the card and the disc in the conservatory archive that passed to Hacettepe keep it.

Collections and Variants

An almost identical line was also recorded outside Amasya. On 30 June 1941 the team took a song in Kayseri from Lütfi Ertek and Ahmet Gazi Ayhan beginning "Ak Gelin: Yüce dağ başında bir top kar idim"; the only difference is that "kar", snow, is written "gar" on the Amasya card. The words "Yüce dağ başında" also open other songs in the catalogue, but with different continuations: "bir soğuk pınar" at Salihli in 1938, "bir uzun selvi" at Akşehir in 1940, and "bir ulu çınar" at Fatsa in 1943 and at Akçakoyun in 1947. Haluk Yücel's study of Amasya songs likewise lists a work called only "Yüce dağ" among the long songs; since he gives nothing beyond the name, whether it is this melody cannot be determined.

Story

The words read like the lament of someone parted from a loved one. Who sang them first, and on what occasion, no printed tradition records; the website that published the words adds no story to the song.

Musical Features

The heading "Bozuk" on the card is the only clue to the type of melody, and the catalogue does not explain it; the use of the same name among the Gümüşhacıköy recordings is discussed on the Bozuh page. Osman Samsun's instrument column is empty; by Kaya's method this shows that he played no instrument in the recording. Mode, rhythm and range were not written on the card.

Performers and Recordings

This is Samsun's only recording in the catalogue, and it is on side A of disc 1106; the card for the first item on the disc was not found among the TRT copies. It is followed by the wedding pieces of the seventy-year-old Fatma Samsun: Gelini Ortaya Çıkarırken, Âdem Havva'yı Yarattı, which later entered the TRT repertoire, and Gelin Hamama Gidiyor. The catalogue records no kinship between the two Samsuns. For Amasya's long songs and folk songs: The Melody of Yeşilırmak.

Bibliography

Academic studies

Other sources

Online sources