In less than two weeks I will be performing again at one my favorite venues, Tea Room at the Crazy Wisdom bookstore, downtown Ann Arbor. This time, I am going to devote most of the evening to songs from my former home country, Yugoslavia, which is no more … To give you an idea of some of the landscapes at which I used to hang out as a youngster, please, see the photo from a recent family trip a few years back.
Most of the songs you will hear, I heard for the first time in my high school and college days, and have never stopped humming them since. I will be singing in Macedonian and SerboCroatian (a language eliminated with the civil war in Yugoslavia in the 1990’s). To help you appreciate the poetry of this music, I will bring printouts of all the lyrics so you can read along as I sing. Some of the songs were written by singer-songwriters, some by leaders of rock and folk bands, and all of them carry hauntingly beautiful tunes. Here is a translation of one of the lyrics:
Last night I dreamt I did not have you
(Sanjao sam noćas da te nemam by Bijelo Dugme)
Last night I dreamt I did not have you
That I lay awake in a bed of snow
And quietly, quietly,
Some other woman is calling my name.
Where, but where?
Just a nightmare.
In the dream I saw a white lily,
And black horses and a wedding party without a song.
And quietly, without a sound
The people dear to me are leaving for somewhere
Where, but where?
Just a nightmare.
Hey night, stop now, let the dawn come in.
Hey night, stop now, let the dawn come in.