A REAL FOLK BARD

Writer: Yavuz İşçen
April 2007

Singing a folk song requires attention to detail, great effort and patience. A real folk bard bares his inner soul to the listener. Singing without feeling the lyrics and the tune with his heart would be disrespectful to the folk song. Refik Başaran is one of our rare folk bards to sing a folk song the way it should be sung.

The name of Refik Başaran would not sound familiar to many people. However every Turk would know songs such as Cemalım Cemalım, Koprüden Geçti Gelin, Karadır Kaşları and many more.
Refik Başaran really is one of the milestones of Turkish Folk Music. The artist was born in 1907 and passed away in 1945 when he was just 38 years old. He sang many folk songs in his short life and for the last 15 years had a reputation in Anatolia for being an expert both in playing the saz (a traditional Turkish musical string instrument) and writing lyrics. He influenced many artists that came after him and became a role model for them. Among those are many famous names of Turkish folk music such as Hacer Buluş, Ahmet Gazi Ayhan, Zekeriya Bozdağ, Neşet Ertaş, Muharrem Ertaş and many more.

An authentic character
He dramatised the events that he told in his songs by combining love with beauty, affection with sadness, bravery with honesty. He sang with the local Nevşehir and Ürgüp accent and kept the characteristic Middle Anatolian style in his songs. Even though his saz-playing was bare, he was an expert in embroidering songs with small musical notes. Playing saz without frets and adapting the sound to his voice was his distinctive style. He had a very good memory and was famous for being able to memorize new songs as he heard them. He stopped local folk songs from being forgotten by recording them, so that they can still be heard today.
Refik Başaran was not a man who valued money. A life style similar to the old Anatolian singers, who were sometimes penniless but never subservient, was a priority to him. Even when he became famous and earned lots of money he still couldn’t buy the house he promised to his wife as he preferred to spend it with his friends having fun. He always kept his old life style even when he was rich. He preferred living day by day and as he wanted. He was invited by Muzaffer Sarısözen to play saz for the Yurttan Sesler Chorus (Sounds from the Country) on Radio Ankara. After working there for three months he couldn’t bare the stress and, as he put it, ‘resigned to gain his freedom’, because he was a man who should be wandering from a village to village on his donkey with his saz. 
There are many stories told locally about him. In one of these, he was going back to his village from Ürgüp on his horse. Being completely drunk he suddenly realised that he had lost one of his shoes on the way. Being too lazy to go back and search for it, he simply took off the other shoe and left it on the road. When he was telling this story he laughed and said “I thought one shoe wouldn’t be useful to the person who finds it so I left the other one as well!”

Carrying the surname given by Atatürk
In 1930 he left his village for Ankara and there came first in a contest amongst folk bards. Ataturk who was watching this contest presented him with the surname of Başaran. Refik Başaran made his first recording in 1935 and went on to record 70 more. His records were 78’s and were released by companies such as Sahibinin Sesi, Odeon, Columbia and Polidor.
The Governor of Ankara at the time was inspecting the local coffee houses. He bumped into Refik Başaran during this inspection and requested a song from him. However Refik Başaran refused to sing, as he believed that the desire to sing a folk song should come from the singer and cannot be forced. The governor insisted on him singing a song and he even offered him 50 TL, a large amount of money at the time. Refik Başaran, who sometimes didn’t have a penny to his name, smiled and refused, as for him living with his dignity was most important.
Another incident occurred during a wedding party where he was a guest. On being asked by the hosts to sing, Refik Başaran said that they could not make him do anything by force. The argument got out of control and ended with the hosts beating Refik Başaran up. After this incident he became ill and rested in the Kırşehir Inn in Ankara. This illness was one of the probable causes that led to his death in 1945. His first grave was located between two willow trees that he loved and told about in his songs, in the outskirts of Abdülselam Mountain in the Ayaş district of Ankara. In 1977 his grave was transferred to his village, Taşkınpaşa (Damsa), back in his beloved Ürgüp.

Our folk songs are tapestry of emotion woven with melancholy. What is listening to a folk song other than observing a painting that portrays the hard and sad lives of Anatolian people from the past to today.

Stories of two of Refik Başaran’s songs

My Ayşe’s Green Dowry Chest (Ayşem’in Yeşil Sandığı)
This is a traditional local folk song that was made famous by Refik Başaran. This song is about beautiful Ayşe who just got married. When her husband leaves for his military duty, he leaves her at his father’s house. One day the father in law gets angry with Ayşe and slaps her. However she can’t bear this humiliation and commits suicide by throwing herself into the river Kızılırmak. Her death causes great sorrow to the father in law and he leaves for the mountains and loses his mind. He is shot and later dies. The first verse is sung by the groom, the second by the father in law, the third by the locals and the last one by the chorus.

Stay Merry Ürgüp (Şen Olasın Ürgüp)
Cemal, the son of a wealthy family from the Karlık Village in Ürgüp, was ambushed and murdered. As everyone loved him in the village his death created great sorrow. This song was written by his widow, Şerife, whose son Mustafa was later kicked to death by a horse. Long after that Şerife remarried a man from the same village. It was this man,  Hayrullah Aksoy, who brought the song to Refik Başaran’s attention. He made the song famous by recording it.  Serife died in 1993.

They saw you riding out of Ürgüp,
Could tell your horse from its gallop
And decided it was murder, your due

Cemal, Cemal my own, deadly wounded
Reddened all over, in his own blood

Shot between Karlık and Başkadınpınar,
Many are the wounds on Cemal's chest
Here comes weeping his mother

Cemal, Cemal my own, deadly wounded
Reddened all over, in his own blood

Note: This article has been published in Peribacası Cappadocia Culture and Publicity Magazine, April 2007 issue. It is under protection of the copyrights of the magazine. No part of this article may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by electronic, mechanical or other means without prior permission from the owner. www.cappadociaexplorer.com