The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #83298   Message #2618077
Posted By: Jack Campin
24-Apr-09 - 04:40 PM
Thread Name: Origin: I Come and Stand at Every Door / Hiroshima
Subject: RE: Child of hiroshima song/publisher
The reason it reminds you of that tune is because it was first written for "The Great Silkie"/The Grey Selchie". Search around here a bit and you'll find links to the older traditional tune for that song.

I wrote about settings of the Hiroshima song here: http://www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=118299.

This gave me the impetus to look at attempts to rework one of my favourite songs. Nazim Hikmet's "Kiz Cocugu" (Girl), a monologue by the ashes of a girl killed in the Hiroshima bombing, is well known on the folk scene due to Pete Seeger, as "I Come and Stand at Every Door".

Here's that familiar one, sung by This Mortal Coil with video footage from a film of the Japanese manga about the bombing, "Barefoot Gen":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UycvFgD4r-A

But they don't sing it to that in Turkey. Here's Nazim Hikmet reading his own poem, followed by the popular setting by Zulfu Livaneli, here sung by Joan Baez in Turkish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3I4OnAuZIo

Here's Livaneli singing it himself, solo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxCFBbVF85o

Here's a very fine performance he did in the early 1980s with Maria Farantouri, who sang her verses in Greek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMj51k_krxs

And here's a clip of an entirely different and rather wilder setting of the tune, by Ruhi Su, which I think predates Livaneli's:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIuZOu3UtL0

The same poem has been reworked in Japanese, by Ryuichi Sakamoto. I guess they've got more right to it than anybody else:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmsRNQ57f1M

And another take on that Japanese version, a very emotional performance filmed at Ground Zero in modern Hiroshima:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCCv2fS1wPU

(Most of the videos use harrowing footage of the bombing).

Other versions? There must for sure be one in Russian. There had better be one in Hebrew. (Speaking of which, where has Volgadon got to? He'll know of both).

Here's the ABC for Livaneli's setting (lines without words are instrumentals) from his book "Songs from the Past to the Future" (Ararat Verlag, 1981):

X:1
T:Kapilari calan benim
C:Zulfu Livaneli (words: Nazim Hikmet)
M:3/4
L:1/4
Q:1/4=120
K:D Dorian
"Dm"D F G|A c A|         c A          c |    d    f d|\
"Dm"g f d|c A F|"Dm7sus4"G F          C |"Dm"D3      ||
%
"G" c d2 |d (d<c)|"Dm"    d (c<    A)    |    A    A2 |
w:Ka-pi-lar-i* cal-an* ben-im
"G" c d2 |d (d<c)|"Dm"    d (c<    A)    |    A    A2 |
w:Ka-pi-lar-i* bir-er* bir-er
"G" c d2 |d (d<c)|"F"      d (A//G//F/- F)|"G"(A/G/) G2 |
w:Go-zu-nuz-e* gor-u-***ne-*mem
"Dm"F G2 |A F2 |"Cm7"   _E E2          |"Dm"D    D2||
w:Goz-e gor-un-mez ol-u-ler
"Dm"g f d|c A F|"Dm7sus4"G F         C |"Dm"D3       |
%
"G" c d2 |d (d<c)|"Dm"    d (A//G//F/- F)|"G"(A/G/) G2 |
%
w:Goz-u-nuz-e* gor-u-***ne-*mem
"Dm"F G2 |A F2 |"Cm7"   _E E2          |"Dm"D    D2||
w:Goz-e gor-un-mez ol-u-ler
%
"Dm"G A F|D C G|"Dm7sus4"F D          C |"Dm"D3      |]


The full Turkish text is attached to many of those videos and is on innumerable Turkish lyrics sites. The usual English translation changes the ending a bit.

To play or display ABC tunes, try concertina.net