On Canovals' Blog you will encounter Croatian and other music that I like, along with the Psalms, some Croatian Bajka, and fairytales from other lands. I also write about other topics that intrigue me and I hope will interest you too. Dobrodosli! Welcome! Enjoy! Uživati!
Vasilija Radojčić. 21 April 1936 - 25 September 2011. Buried in New Cemetary in Belgrade at 11:30 Wednesday 28 September 2011. Predeceased by her husband Milan Đorđević of many years, Vasilija is survived by her daughter Mirjana. Valsilija sang not only Serbian traditional music but also the traditional songs of Makedonija and Bosnija. Sevdelinka will be poorer in the absence of her vocal talents.
In all of her fifty-plus year career, Vasilija never sang in a bar. About this she said "I guess the songs I sang were not for ... banging glasses. Maybe they are afraid and to invite me because I was always represented in the media as a lady, a married woman ..." Vasilija, your voice will be with us always.
Her first record was "Poletela sojka ptica."
tekst:
Poletela sojka ptica prije vremena, poletela sojka ptica prije vremena, aj, gigano, prije vremena. Pitale je drugarice: Zašto ne pevaš? Pitale je drugarice: Zašto ne pevaš, aj, gigano, zašto ne pevaš? Pevala bi i igrala bi, al' mi car ne da, pevala bi i igrala bi, al' mi car ne da, aj, gigano, al' mi car ne da. Imala sam jedno drago vrlo daleko, imala sam jedno drago vrlo daleko, aj, gigano, vrlo daleko. Pisaću mu tužno pismo, tužno, žalosno, pisaću mu tužno pismo, tužno žalosno, aj, gigano, tužno žalosno.
Approximate english translation: Sojka birds flew ahead of time,
Sojka birds flew ahead of time,
aj, Gigan, ahead of time.
Asked her companion: Why do not you sing?
Asked her companion: Why can you not sing,
aj, Gigan, why you not sing?
Sang and played to be, But my emporor is not that
sang and played to be, But my emporor is not that
aj, Gigan, But we is not that emporor.
I had one very much happy,
I had one very much happy,
aj, Gigan, very far.
Writing a letter to him sad, sad, sad,
Writing to him letter sad, sad sad,
aj, Gigan, sad sad.
POLETELA SOJKA PTICA
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings,
Zvijezda tjera Mjeseca is one of those amazingly pervasive songs which has been around quite a long time. It's origins are unmistakably traditional sevdah. The distinctly woman's point of view in the poetry has not kept a number of men singers away from performing it. Stari Prijatelji and many others sing this song in all kinds of venues. The Duo Moma i Maria give a pleasing live performance in a party setting which they have posted to youtube.
Hanka Paldum '- Večer Sevdaha Lisinski 2011
Hanka Paldum, who performs for our video here, was born 28 April 1956. She was the oldest daughter of Mujo and Pemba who lived in modest circumstances in Čajniče, a community in the south east of Bosna i Hercegovina near where BIH borders with Crnagora. She has two brothers, Mustafa and Smail and two sisters, Rasema and Raza. Pemba wove carpets for the market. Some of you who know me personally will not be at all surprised to learn that Mujo, her father was a lumberman employed by Orah Stakorina which besides producing fir lumber, also manufactures steamed beech wood products used for solid wood furniture as well as other specialties such as wooden boxes for munitions.
location of Čajniče in BiH
Everyone around her noticed Hanka's special voice even when she was a child. Music teachers took her under their wing and encouraged her. After the family moved to Sarajevo area, Mustafa, her older brother accompanied her to sing in public venues. Hanka's career began in In 1975 at an amateur contest Pjevamo danu mladosti Sing for Youth Day), where she sang “Pokraj puta rodila jabuka,” (by roadside born apples) written by Mijat Božovi. Aferward she toured with Meho Puzić and others.
Čajniče
In 1978 she married Muradif Brkic. In 1979 they founded Sarajevodisk to oversee the production of her recordings. Her break through into the people's hearts came with “Voljela sam, voljela” (I am loved, I loved) which Nikola Borota - Radovan recorded in a highly unusual and irregular but state-of-the-art home studio. With Radovan's genius beside her and the encouragment of others, she broke into the history of Balkan music by using electronic synthesizers along side the usual array of traditional instruments. Today that does not seem unusual, but back then, that was groundbreaking work. If it seems sometimes that electronic synthesizers, keyboards we call them now, seem to have been designed especially to replicate the sounds of Balkan instruments, its because they were. Hehe, remember that the next time you listen to Rock music. From that time to the present Hanka Paldum has stood at the top of the charts and is known as the finest sevdah singer of all times.
For more about her you are encouraged to visit the official Hanka Paldumweb page which of course is on the croatian language and where there are many photographs and lots of music to listen to. Clicking on the link above will take you to a new page while leaving this one open so you may return here easily.
Zvijezda tjera Mjeseca text:
Zvijezda tjera mjeseca za goru ga otjera
Za goricom vodica na vodici curica bijelo lice umiva (2x)
Daj mi malo vodice iz te bijele rucice
Ne dam dragi ni kapi nek' ti dusa izlapi zbog sinocne besjede (2x)
Zbog sinocne besjede i rumene jabuke
Drugoj dajes rumene meni mladoj uvele uvela ti dusa ta (2x)
Uvela ti dusa ta
on English: the star is chasing the moon it chased it to the mountain
at the mountain there was water by the water there was a girl she was washing her white face
give me a bit water from those white hands
dear I won't even give you a drop let your soul evaporate because of the last night story
because of the last night story and ruddy apples
You're giving another (woman) ruddy (apples) to young me you're giving faded ones
your soul fades
your soul fades
In this poetry there are the images of the evening/morning star Danica and the Moon deeply rooted in the south Slavic cultures. My interpretation of this is that the young woman's beloved has been unfaithful. The apples are symbolic of certain features of his physical manhood which as far as she is concerned may now go shrivel up and fall off. In this video I used a bit of nudity or near nudity. At the time I did this I thought I was being tasteful and careful in the way I used the material to tell the story. At the present I am not so sure that was the correct way to proceed. We will talk more about this another time, at the present I am not making videos with this much skin in view.
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings, Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
Dvje Suze iz Dva Oka could be called a sevdah just like Majcin Oprostaj, In fact, the words are nearly the same but the performance is very different. Nočni Život, though a band from just a few miles away from the world Meho Puzić was born, is still north of the Sava River and a world apart. Their performance is good, its excellent in fact, solid, strong, but from a different emotional perspective than the perspective which Puzić brings to the piece.
Here's the difference. Puzić is "city folk." The Sevdah is the product of folk like him. Sevdah sprang to life during the middle ages in the towns of Turkish occupied Bosnia, towns where Turkish officials were headquartered with their families, towns where at least the muslims lived by muslim law which sternly separated unmarried women from the unmarried men. The walls of custom and the real walls were boundaries which impeded love and often made love as impossible as would thousands of miles distance. Sevdah, especially in those times often expressed the pain and yearning of women enclosed in that system. Sevdah or sevdalinka is often written about as an "urban" cultural form.
So sevdah is city folk music. Mmmm hmmm. My grandmother had a sister who looked down on her as an unrefined country girl. Grandmother and Grandfather lived on a farm near Prairie Home, Missouri - in Moniteau County south of Columbia. Prairie Home had five or six hundred people in those days. Grandmother's sister lived in California. California, Missouri that is. A town of maybe three thousand souls. California, Missouri was "urban" compared to the rural farming community. Grandmother's sister most surely did not feed the chickens and slop the hogs. Nor did she have a cellar where she stored vegetables from her garden. When grandmother opened her canned beets she carefully washed the jar to reuse it next season. Her sister just threw away the metal can which she opened. Life in the big city was decidedly different from life on the farm. However, my dear great-aunt would have been totally lost in Houston or San Francisco or even St Louis.
Where are we going with this? Nočni Život mostly sing to a young urban crowd - the crowd Americans used to sometimes call "Urban Cowboys". You know the crowd I mean, the "country crowd" who wear expensive boots you wouldn't really use in a cow pen and listen to rock music. The crowd they sing to lives and works in Zagreb or in Berlin. They have roots somehow in the country but they work in the city and they aren't going back except to visit.
Nočni Život is as good a Country-Western band as you will find anywhere in the world - even in Texas. As I write this, I'm listening to them sing "Suspicious Minds" in as good English as any American group you will ever find. Oops, and now here comes "Laku noc ljubavi" (good night love) where oddly enough they really come closer to the emotional flavor expressed by that special Balkan waver in the music which characterizes a Sevdah than they do in "Dvje Suze iz Dva Oka." NočniŽivot is another successful working "wedding band." They have a wedding to play for this Friday and another wedding this Saturday.
The difference between Meho Puzić and Nočni Život might be compared to the difference between the perspective from Luchenbach, Texas as Willie Nelson sings "Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain" and the way in which Elvis Presley sang the same song. Its like that with Puzić and the young men of Nočni Život. Both are fantastic, both are highly emotive, but they are simply decidedly different in their approach to the music. Here is a comment made by a visitor over on YouTube. Maybe he explains it all better than I have. "pjesma ne ide u ovom ritmu, originalni ritam je 7/8...ali u svakom slučaju odlično otpjevano i odsvirano, tu nema dileme! prijatan pozdrav" In English that's: "song does notgo intothisrhythm,the rhythm oftheoriginal [is] 7/8...but inany caseperfectlysungandplayed,there is nodilemma!pleasantgreeting"
Nočni Život
For those who want the tekst:
Hitao je sinak majci
koja bolna bi
da je zivu zatekne
da mu halali, da mu oprosti
Dvije suze iz dva oka
na majcin su mezar pale
dvije ruze na mezaru
iz suza su procvjetale
Zatekao nije majku
dok mu ziva bi
duge pute prevalio
da mu halali, da mu oprosti
Zatvorila majka oci
sta je bilo, bi
sin je nije zatekao
da mu halali, da mu oprosti
The English translation will be almost the same as I gave on Majcin Oprostaj, maybe go look over there if you must have it?
DVIJE SUZE IZ DVA OKA - Nočni Život
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings, Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
Majcin Oprostaj is a sevdalinka or sevdah. This is a major change of pace now from uspješnica. Sevdalinka are characterized by rich harmony full of melancholic emotions. The tempo is a slow or moderate and varied by the singer throughout the song. Sevdalinka songs are very elaborate, emotionally charged and are traditionally sung with passion and fervor. The combination of Oriental, European and Sephardic elements make this genre stand out among other types of Balkan folk music. For more about this genre please peruse the Glossary.
Meho Puzić was born at Odžak in 1937. Odžak is a town of about ten thousand population in the Bosanska Posavina, more precisely in Posavska županija in Bosnia directly across the Sava from Croatia. Odžak is a place where minaret and church are not far apart. Until his death 25 June 2007 Puzić was a well known sevdalinka performer.
Odžak 1905
Odžak 2009
As could be expected, MAJCIN OPROSTAJ is a sad sad song. The song is about as sad as they come. A mother has awaited her son with tears in her eyes day after day, year after year, perhaps decade after decade, but he never comes to her side. Now her eyes are closed forever. Now, forever, there is no one to forgive him. Now, forever, there is no end to his remorse.
This is a teaching song within the culture. This is one of those "sonny boy, you had best go see your mother and take care of her or the guilt is going to overwhelm you someday" songs. Are there more songs like this one? Yes, there are.
Tekst: Hitao je siank majci jer mu bolna bi, jer mu bolna bi da je vidi dok je ziva da mu halali, da mu oprosti
Ref. 2x Dvije suze iz dva oka na mezar su kanule iz tih suza dvije ruze na mezaru procvale
Zatekao nije majku dok mu ziva bi nije sina docekala da mu halali, da mu oprosti Ref. 2x
Zatvorila majka oci sta je bilo bi nije sina docekala da mu halali, da mu oprosti Ref. 2x
English Translation: Help! This song is in Bosnian, yes? I must confess that I am not sure exactly how these words go on English. Maybe someone help me fill in the blanks on this one. Nevertheless, I think the English reader will understand the point of the song.
[Hitao] is [siank] mother because be painful to him, because be painful to him to see her while alive that he ask her to forgive him
Ref 2x Two tears of two eyes the tomb of the tear-ducts from these tears two roses blossom on a grave
He found no mother While she was alive no son came to greet her so he could plead with her to forgive him Ref 2x
Mother closed eyes What is will be no son come to greet her so he could plead with her to forgive him Ref 2x
MAJCIN OPROSTAJ - Meho Puzić
do sljedeći put, blagoslov - until next time, blessings, Canovals a.k.a. Slavonac
In all of her fifty-plus year career, Vasilija never sang in a bar. About this she said "I guess the songs I sang were not for ... banging glasses. Maybe they are afraid and to invite me because I was always represented in the media as a lady, a married woman ..." Vasilija, your voice will be with us always.
