The first cigarette


Άλκης Αλκαίος:
Πρωινό τσιγάρο

Χαράζει η μέρα και η πόλη έχει ρεπό
στη γειτονιά μας καπνίζει ένα φουγάρο
κι εγώ σε ζητάω σαν πρωινό τσιγάρο
και σαν καφέ πικρό
και σαν καφέ πικρό

Άδειοι οι δρόμοι δε φάνηκε ψυχή
και το φεγγάρι μόλις χάθηκε στη Δύση
και γω σε γυρεύω σαν μοιραία λύση
και σαν Ανατολή
και σαν Ανατολή

Βγήκε ο ήλιος το ράδιο διαπασών
μ' ένα χασάπικο που κλαίει για κάποιον Τάσο
κι εγώ σε ποντάρω κι ύστερα πάω πάσο
σ' ένα καρέ τυφλό
σ' ένα καρέ τυφλό

(1984)
Alkis Alkeos:
The first cigarette

The day is breaking and the city reposes
in our neighborhood a chimney is smoking
and I want you like the first cigarette
like bitter coffee
like bitter coffee

The streets are empty, no soul can be seen
the moon has just set down in the West
and I seek you like a final solution
like the sunrise
like the sunrise

The sun has risen and on the radio
a hasapiko is crying for some Tassos
and I bet on you and then I pass you by the card
four of a kind
four of a kind


This beautiful poem by Alkis Alkeos has become widely known in the Greek world with the music of Notis Mavroudis. I do not know whether it is Mavroudis himself who accompanies it on guitar on the video below, but from the Ibanez kept in his hands in the first frame we expect exactly the sound resounding a second later. The master of classical guitar is revealed not only by the motifs echoing the great 19th-century guitar composers but also by the typical creaking at the changes of stoppings, so intimately familiar to the ears of every classical guitarist. Mavroudis has taught in the conservatories of Milano, Compostela and Athens, and when in my school days I learned classical guitar, he was a celebrated master of the summer guitar festivals in Esztergom, Hungary.


The male choir might be surprising, but Mavroudis probably imagined it exactly like this when he set the poem to music. In fact, he intended it for a great concert, the greatest concert of Greece after the military junta, organized in 1985 in memory of the great composer Manos Loizos who had kept the hope alive in face of the regime. On that occasion the song was sung by the two singer-icons Haris Alexiou and Giorgios Dalaras. Since then a number of other recordings have been made as well, with Arleta or Nina Venetsanou (this latter accompanied by Mavroudis himself), although the popularity of the song is principally attested by the large number of amateur videos scattered all over the net.

Angélique Ionatos: Chansons nomadesI, however, love it the most in the performance of Angélique Ionatos. Not only because some twenty years ago we became enamoured of Greek music and modern Greek poetry due to the songs of hers and of her brother Photis Ionatos. But also because their style – perhaps because they have lived in Belgium since their teens – is refreshingly free from that artificial and overstimulated emotional tone which reminds you of the hits of the fifties and which is still felt as obligatory by some Greek singers.

Angélique sings the poems of contemporary Greek and French poets on this CD. It is worth to observe how differently – with a touch of tango and of French chansons – the Algerian French guitarist Henri Angel plays the classical solos of Mavroudis. And it is also worth to note how similar is the melody of this song to that of the Al alba, the “unofficial hymn of the Spanish Transición” written some years earlier by Luis Eduardo Aute, and to the refrain of another “unofficial hym,” the Ithaca by Konstantinos Kavafis, set to music by Photis Ionatos: Tous lestrygonas ke tous kyklopas…


Angelique Ionatos & Henri Agnel: Πρωινό τσιγάρο (3'28"). From the album Chansons nomades (Gypsy songs, 2001).

The poems of Alkis Alkeos have been set to music in a great number since the end of the seventies, and it seems like several of them have become “unofficial hymns,” too. In Greek forums and blogs they are often quoted, their videos included, and commented in an enchantment like this casual example might attest it:

I have never seen him. Not even in picture. I have not heard him speaking either. I don’t know anything about him.
But I know him. In the evenings he is sitting at home and working. He is an everyday, simple man. With good humor. He loves to work in the garden. Has a few friends.
He philosophizes. Smokes a lot. Loves to sit in front of the fireplace and to go on long walks. To walk among the fallen leaves.
I have never seen him. But I know him. For me he is the most important Greek poet.


Sometimes it crosses my mind how little we know about that popular – sung – poetry that so deeply determines the everyday culture of other countries, lending them ideas, images and words to formulate their own lives. And even if the songs themselves reach us and even if we might understand their texts, we do not know the most important thing: what they mean there and to them. Like nobody outside of our country knows what the songs of the band Lokomotív Gt. meant to us in the eighties. Natives only rarely commit these meanings to writing. This enhances the importance of such exceptional sites like the database of Riccardo Venturi which makes efforts to list not only the various anti-war songs themselves but also these “local meanings” of theirs. And this is why we also try to collect in our topic of “ballads” the meanings of the songs meaningful to us.

And we hope that our Greek readers would write us about the meaning of this song of Alkeos, too.


4 comentarios:

βαγγελης ιντζιδης dijo...

Παραθέτω
δύο μνήμες σχετικές με το τσιγάρο
(1) ΤΟ ΜΑΡΜΑΡΙΝΟ ΤΡΑΠΕΖΙ
Αll around oι τέσσερις ύστερα
Οι τρεις οι δύο κι ο ένας l' unique le solitaire
Le marie a vie a sa cigarette μπροστά σε έναν εξώστη επάνω στη Μεσόγειο
Και μια κούπα έννοιες δύσκολες και εύγεστες come i fichi la mattina
Μετρά κείνο που μένει. Το ίδιο που δε βρίσκεται ποτέ μέσα στο άθροισμα [...]
(Δυτικά της Λύπης, Οδυσσέας Ελύτης)
2.VILLA NATACHA
΄Εχω κάτι να πω διάφανο και ακατάληπτο
Σαν κελαηδητό σε ώρα πολέμου

Εδώ σε μια γωνιά που κάθισα
Να καπνίσω το πρώτο ελεύθερο τσιγάρο μου
Αδέξιος μες στην ευτυχία, τρέμοντας
Μήπως σπάσω ένα λουλούδι, θίξω κάποιο πουλί
Και σε δύσκολη θέση, εξαιτίας μου, βρεθεί ο Θεός
(Τα Ετεροθαλή, Οδυσσέας Ελύτης)

Studiolum dijo...

…όλα περνάνε μείον το βάρος της ψυχής…

Σας ευχαριστώ πάρα πολύ, Βαγγέλης.

Πόλυ Χατζημανωλάκη dijo...

"The day is breaking and the city takes a day off".

It may sound less poetical than «the city reposes», but a day off, a pause after and before periods of hard work, might give you a hint on the «meaning» of the song to me.

The precious rest contrasted to the fatigue of every day pain – although some activities keep going: «in our neighborghood a chimney is smoking» - signify that I am blessed, I don’t have to go to the factory and I can indulge into my feelings of ache and longing of my beloved – like the longing of cigarette.

Studiolum dijo...

Thank you very much, Poly, for commenting and for giving me your clue. In fact “takes a day off,” besides being more precise, places the whole image in a wider context, of a larger breath, and a stronger contrast to one’s emptiness and yearning.

Can you also tell – of course only if it pleases you, and only in a few words – what do the “parents” of this song, Alkeos, Mavroudis, Ionatos “mean” for you? Do you share the enthusiasm of the quoted fans? Or they are just on the periphery of your interest, or simply unimportant to you, parts of a different subculture? I ask it just as some contribution to a mental map, for distinguishing and correctly evaluating the landmarks in the labyrinth of another culture.