By Vestnik Kavkaza
Vestnik Kavkaza" continues its "Music Treasury" section and present music and musicians of the region. Recently we have written about a popular Iranian musician Mansour who is loved in Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Tajikistan. Today we present a video containing Azerbaijani folk songs Bari Baakh and Sakineh Dai Gizi sung by him. Mansour is not the first singer who turned to the works, but he adapted them to techno music. On the one hand, the video with folk music rapped in modern popular music and half-naked dancing girls caused a sharp reaction in the society; on the other hand it became a trademark of the singer. The video has 4 million views on YouTube.
Both songs are rooted from times when no professional singers existed. Mansur turned them into modern minimalist popular techno music.
The Azerbaijani folk song Bari Baakh is included into repertoire of almost all folk singers. That’s why there are many versions of signing the song. Bari Baakh is a love optimistic song. A young man who sings the song makes a declaration of love; he also dreams about wedding, says goodbye before parting and hopes for a soon meeting. “Ai bari baakh” (look at me, look here) are repeated as chorus.
It seems the song appeared in the 18-19th centuries. There is a record of the song of the early 20th century. The first musical notations appeared in the 1920-1930s. Another variant of the song – Ai Bari Baakh, Bari Baakh – was published in the Azerbaijani Folk Songs Digest (Volume II, Baku, 1956) with a notation by Rustamov. The variant is the most popular.
At the moment Bari Baakh is sung at festivals, concerts; even Vakhtang Kikabidze sings it in Georgian. Along with Azerbaijan the song is popular in Iran and Anatolia (Turkey). The word Pəncərə (window) is repeated in the song for several times. It is connected with traditions of the Azerbaijani people. According to Musical Academician Jamila Hasanova, the window is a space where certain events happened, which led to appearance of the song.
In ancient times Azerbaijani girls didn’t walk on the streets, met, and talk to young man. The most they could do was talking from their windows. A life of a young girl was spent behind windows. That’s why a window was important for young man who wanted to see a beautiful girl, fall in love, and get married.
Pəncərənin milləri,
Аçıb qızıl gülləri,
Oğlanı yoldan eylər,
Qızın şirin dilləri, (.....ay bəri bax bəri bax.)
Conceptual translation:
The flowers in the window, have budded beautifully,
A boy is usually tempted, by a girl's sweet words.
Pəncərədən daє gəlir,
Xumar gözdən yaş gəlir,
Səni mənə versələr,
Hamıya da xoş gəlir......ay bəri bax bəri bax.
Translation:
A sad girl at the window,
From her eyes tears flow,
If you would marry me,
Everyone would joyful be!
Sakineh Dai Gizi
In the second half of the video Mansur begins to sing the other ancient Azerbaijani folk song “Sakineh Dai Gizi.” It is not as popular in North Azerbaijan as the first one, but it is very popular in South Azerbaijan (Iran) where tens of millions of Azerbaijanis live. It is a song which tells about love to a common girl Sekineh. Sakineh Dai Gizi is interesting because it reflects ancient household traditions of the Azerbaijani people.
One of lines is "Başına dolanim neynim yar neynim yar" – I will spin around you, my love. The narrator offers his love a custom of walking round – one of traditions of Turk nations, when a person changes his or her social status, including wedding. It is thought if a person walks around another person, he gets qualities of the person around whom he walked. Thus, the narrator is ready to walk around Sakineh to take her problems away and hints on wedding.
The other line says "Sene Bir don alim", it means “I will buy a wedding dress to you.” The word “don” is used as a synonym to “donluq” which means a wedding dress. The narrator proposes Sekineh openly, as a wedding dress should be bought by a groom. Even though both songs are ancient, today they are popular in the Azerbaijani society and neighboring countries.
