Uploaded August 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Hmm...Something went wrong with my first upload of this video, so here's a fixed version. I've since been given really great translation notes- thanks Tanja Pejović!
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Well, it's hardly perfect, and my accent is weird, but here's a song filmed on the fly in Sarajevo the other day. It starts out between the Latinski Bridge and the pivarna and ends up by Željeznica in Ilidža, not far from where it breaks from river Bosna.
There's a lot of great music, most of which will never be contained by the formats of sheet music, concerts or recordings. I think that's just how it is and always will be. I guess I'm saying two things there, one of which is that if you're looking for great musical experiences don't be surprised if you don't often find them in those places.
The more I've thought about it the more I've come to suspect that the poorly made youtube video is a better vehicle for ...not capturing, but maybe portraying a dream of... the moments I'm talking about. There's something about the crappiness of them that makes them more like memory and less like something that's pretending to be something it isn't. Maybe.
I don't claim to be an expert singer of sevdalinka, but l've been singing this one for a long time I love it, as a song and for its connections to my life. My last two days in Sarajevo this time around I had a couple of interesting run ins with the music. I walked over to the narodne musike festival in Ilidža on Friday which was...fine for a while. While walking to the river, though, I heard an old guy singing on his balcony- REALLY good singer. I stopped to listen, we traded a few songs, and we talked some about music. He mostly talked about singing 'iz srca' and 'iz duše," as opposed to (and then he did an awesome old guy dance interpretation of club music). Of course I like a lot of that stuff, and have mostly been listening to Die Antwoord lately, but I get what he meant.
Friday night I walked through the rain to a kafana in the neighborhood and hung out with Hava, a wonderful singer, and Laki (moj zet). We sang old stuff, songs of Haris Džinović, some Bijelo Dugme, I sang some of mine. It was...you could say, rough, but also lovely, despite having to outsing, or at least outlisten, some very wasted guys in the corner.
I don't quite get a lot of this song, or most sevdalinke for that matter, both because my language skills are so limited and because the lyrics are so poetic. But the gist here is:
Is it the wind? Or the clouds? Is it dark night?
Is it sun, is it moon, is it bright day?
It's not the wind, not clouds, not the dark night.
There is one Sokolović,
the young bey Ibrahim
(The next verse is hard, and the internet was no help)
He brought, carried himself to his great...(something something),
how he kisses the sultan's, sultan's Zulejha (spelling? is it "Dž...?)
he sings "tell me Zulka
tell me my soul,
what am I to you?"
She sings
"You are Ibro...the bright sun
that over us shines."
Maybe someone can help with the translation. Damir? Tanja?
Hmm...Something went wrong with my first upload of this video, so here's a fixed version. I've since been given really great translation notes- thanks Tanja Pejović!
----------
Well, it's hardly perfect, and my accent is weird, but here's a song filmed on the fly in Sarajevo the other day. It starts out between the Latinski Bridge and the pivarna and ends up by Željeznica in Ilidža, not far from where it breaks from river Bosna.
There's a lot of great music, most of which will never be contained by the formats of sheet music, concerts or recordings. I think that's just how it is and always will be. I guess I'm saying two things there, one of which is that if you're looking for great musical experiences don't be surprised if you don't often find them in those places.
The more I've thought about it the more I've come to suspect that the poorly made youtube video is a better vehicle for ...not capturing, but maybe portraying a dream of... the moments I'm talking about. There's something about the crappiness of them that makes them more like memory and less like something that's pretending to be something it isn't. Maybe.
I don't claim to be an expert singer of sevdalinka, but l've been singing this one for a long time I love it, as a song and for its connections to my life. My last two days in Sarajevo this time around I had a couple of interesting run ins with the music. I walked over to the narodne musike festival in Ilidža on Friday which was...fine for a while. While walking to the river, though, I heard an old guy singing on his balcony- REALLY good singer. I stopped to listen, we traded a few songs, and we talked some about music. He mostly talked about singing 'iz srca' and 'iz duše," as opposed to (and then he did an awesome old guy dance interpretation of club music). Of course I like a lot of that stuff, and have mostly been listening to Die Antwoord lately, but I get what he meant.
Friday night I walked through the rain to a kafana in the neighborhood and hung out with Hava, a wonderful singer, and Laki (moj zet). We sang old stuff, songs of Haris Džinović, some Bijelo Dugme, I sang some of mine. It was...you could say, rough, but also lovely, despite having to outsing, or at least outlisten, some very wasted guys in the corner.
I don't quite get a lot of this song, or most sevdalinke for that matter, both because my language skills are so limited and because the lyrics are so poetic. But the gist here is:
Is it the wind? Or the clouds? Is it dark night?
Is it sun, is it moon, is it bright day?
It's not the wind, not clouds, not the dark night.
There is one Sokolović,
the young bey Ibrahim
(The next verse is hard, and the internet was no help)
He brought, carried himself to his great...(something something),
how he kisses the sultan's, sultan's Zulejha (spelling? is it "Dž...?)
he sings "tell me Zulka
tell me my soul,
what am I to you?"
She sings
"You are Ibro...the bright sun
that over us shines."
Maybe someone can help with the translation. Damir? Tanja?
