Selda Bağcan :: Bülbül
When Selda Bağcan was a physics student in Ankara in the late 1960s, she and her friends listened to every psychedelia and folk record pouring out of the US and Europe that they could get their hands on. Soon she began recording. Because of the gulf of time and language between us I don’t know how, but I imagine late nights, friends, wine and smoke, and borrowed gear. The resulting songs have a political urgency and sound borrowed from the records she was devouring, but deepened by something completely new: her country’s own political and musical history, her guitar, and her beautiful, singular voice.
In 1971, her last year at school, she released her first 45. It sold nearly a million copies, and suddenly she was no longer a student recording furtively with friends, but a professional musician. She released five more 45s that year, now considered classics in Turkey. That same year, the military usurped the government with a coup by memorandum. Prominent leftist leaders like Deniz Gezmiş were murdered in increasing numbers. Selda Bağcan became the voice of that year until she was known only as Selda, the mother of Turkish protest-folk music and revolutionary left-wing progressive politics.
Since then, Selda has endured censorship and imprisonment. She’s been unable to travel freely or perform. Yet there are still her records, which have slowly trickled into the outside world. The barriers of time and politics and language melt away at the sound of her voice. Bülbül is a song named for a bird, and the voice that sings it moves with the same effortless beauty and freedom. But it’s still a song sung inside a cage.
Bülbül
Selda Bağcan (myspace page)
Sincere thanks to my friend Emre Akyüz for help with Turkish history and translation, and for giving me so much of Selda’s music.
hiram said on monday, april 07th, 2008
Poppy said on monday, april 07th, 2008
I learned a children’s song about the bulbul when I was in India. We saw some on the river bank behind the Taj Mahal. I like their little mohawks. And this woman’s trilling is very very pleasing to my ears.
joshua said on tuesday, april 08th, 2008
Wow, this post is astonishing. And is exactly why I love this blog. New music and new knowledge about a history I know nothing about. Thanks Melissa.
johnny said on tuesday, april 15th, 2008
this is a goddamn beautiful song. thank you for this post.
Lucy said on wednesday, may 28th, 2008
Thank you for the biography. She’s a fascinating lady hardly known outside Turkey, and her voice is beautiful.
Lovely Selda. Great job, melissa.