Archive Sections: letters | music | index | features | photos | arts/lit | satire Find Iranian singles today!

Review

Leap forward
Beautiful insinuations hidden behind new Googoosh songs

By Narges Nobari
June 1, 2004
iranian.com

dear mr zargahi,

i read your short article on googoosh's latest album many times and i really liked it [Wine, dinner, and Latest News]. i think i am sufferring from another bout of googooshmania and there is no remedy for that. so i thought maybe i could share my experiences about this album with you too.

i am a 24-year-old student of Biology in tehran university. the new googoosh album "Last News" came out just in time for my final exams. everything is excellent but the fact that this album does not leave me alone and i cannot study anymore!!!! i have already ruined two exams and yet i listen to it over and over again and try to get new things out of it. since you seem to be interested enough in this subject let me inform you about my findings.

this is not an easy album at all. the words are chosen perfectly. at first i would like to correct you in the sense that the english translation of the album title is LAST NEWS not the latest news. (the latest news are everchanging but the last news is stationary) if you pay enough attention to the duet with the same title you will hear this part:

AKARIN KHABAR HAMIN HOZOOR TO
KHABAR HADESYE OBOOR TO
PAKHSH YEK GOZARESH AZ KHANDEYE TO
BOGHZ TO PARVAZ PARKANDEYE TO

it means the last news i heard of you was your flying from home and coming to exile.

there are deep meaning and playing with words like that all through the album and in all songs. in the song EID ASHEGH there are so many beautiful insinuations hidden behind common-place wordings . did you understand this song? i guess not. you have to think about it for hours.

what is the meaning of SINI SABZ SOROUD? it sounds like a bit of a nonsense to many people. but actually the meaning is this : SINI in our tradition is made of copper and the color of copper's rust is green. the meaning of soroud is the song of freedom. so the meaning is "take the old song of freedom from the bottom of your heart and renew it again":

"SOUROD AZADI RA AZ NAHAN KHANEYE DEL BARIGIRIM VA ZANGAR BEZODAYEEM"

i can find examples like these all over the song, like:

SHAB TANHAYEE BADBADAK HA, SHAB AGHAZO SHAB PAYAN BOOD...

or:

MAHE KAMEL SARE SOFRE GERYEHAMO SAR KESHIDE.

did you understand them? i am not sure.

musically speaking , this album has many new things to offer too. for example in the song eid ashegh which talks about spring and farvardin (spring of freedom) you hear "NAGHARE & DOHOL", two instrument played on the first day of spring with techno rhythm. or in OTAGH MAN you hear french concertina when she sings about paris, we here rock rhtyhm when she sings about statue of liberty and we hear ney when she sings about her exile. so for me as an ardent fan who always follow her career carefully and with open eyes, this album is not a step but a big leap forward.

but what makes it all so painful to me is the way many iranians are treating their greatest artists. for me a student of biology in tehran it is so exasperating when the owner of one of these trashy TVs in LA says shameful remarks about her on a live braodcast. the only sin she had committed was to send flowers for another dead colloeague SOUSAN and one guy let's himself to turn her memorial service into a tribunal of googoosh and people who sit there start clapping. at first it was her so-called collaboration with jomhouri eslami, now it is sousan, what next? what do they want from our lovely diva?  such a wonderful artist with so much creativity and talent. the fact is that it is not her problem if she does not meet some of our expectations.

the problem is ours. she was googoosh, is googoosh and will be googoosh for the rest of her life. and even after she is gone she will be googoosh in the minds of her people. she is a singer-performer-actress and has not asked to be a symbol of anything. she cannot change regimes for us but she can talk about the farvardin of freedom to her compatriots which she does perfectly.

although for me a repressed woman in iran she is and has always been a symbol of persecution of iranian women. like all of us she was born and grew up and lived under the dictatorship of father and husband. like all of us she tried to free herself a couple of times and like all of us she experienced islamic fundamentalism. like all of us her beauty, art and talent was buried for 21 years but i praise her courage for coming out of that cocoon and flying again. this time much higher and stronger.

more power to her and DASTESH DARD NAKONE.

.................... Say goodbye to spam!

* *

COMMENT
For letters section
To Narges Nobari

* Advertising
* Support iranian.com
* FAQ
* Reproduction
* Write for Iranian.com
* Editorial policy

ALSO
Googoosh
Music
in iranian.com

RELATED
Music features
in iranian.com

Diaspora
in iranian.com

Book of the day
amazon.com

Iran
Between Tradition and Modernity
By Ramin Jahanbegloo (Editor)

© Copyright 1995-2013, Iranian LLC.   |    User Agreement and Privacy Policy   |    Rights and Permissions