From Khorasan to Khuzestan, Azarbaijan to Baluchistan, and Kurdistan to Kerman, Iranians have had a thousands-year-old love affair with music. So much of our national pride in the Iranian heritage is embodied in our love for our music which is colorful, diverse, and beautiful. Our farmers move to energetic and upbeat songs during the day and rest to melancholic and subdued music of Ney in the evenings, all the while cherishing our history-old music, passing it on from generation to generation. In diaspora, Iranian music has found new meaning for us. As we listen to our music, we travel to a land so loved and so far away. It makes us smile and move sometimes, moving our bodies to a dance which is engrained in our thousand-years-old genes, whether or not we are good dancers. It moves us to remember our childhood and our families. It also moves us to cry the tears that we usually hold back, thinking that we have them under control, thinking ourselves to be past that stage in our travels away from Iran.
There are all kinds of music available to us, new, old, traditional, pop, folk, or the 6/8 music we affectionately call “khal-toori.” These days it is so easy to wish hearing something and within seconds have it played on our computers.
Some songs, however, are what I call our national sweethearts. These are songs everybody knows and almost everybody has a memory of these songs. Many different artists have performed these songs, not to mention the millions of Iranians who have performed them in family gatherings, and well, in the shower! I would like to start blogging about some of these songs, asking you to join in and share your memories or your audio or video versions of these songs (shower stall performances will have to be reviewed before they are shared with everyone!).
This week I have picked Sari Galin. I don’t know exactly where the origin of the song is, but I know that it is now a song performed in Azari, Armenian, and Farsi. Sari Galin means “The Yellow Bride,” which might mean “The Bride in A Yellow Gown,” or “The Bride With Golden (yellow) Hair.” Below are the Azari lyrics of the song (from here). The clip I am sharing with you is Hossein Alizadeh’s rendition of the song featuring Maestro Jivan Gasparian, from his Endless Vision album. Sorry for the bad quality of the video. The one I wanted to show you does not allow embedding. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hQtH6RzgmU
Enjoy and let me know what you think! See you again next week!
ساچین اوجون هؤرمزلر
گولو سولو ده رمزلر
بو سئودا نه سئودادیر
سنی منه وئرمزلر
ساری گلین، آمان ساری گلین
بو ده ره نین اوزونو
چوبان قایتار قوزونو
نه اولا بیر گون گؤره م
گول یاریمین اوزونو
ساری گلین، آمان ساری گلین
