A guest post on a great Romanian diva from the remarkable blogger Gadjo Dilo…
Mr. Gaw has kindly offered me the chance to contribute to this estimable blog. I had my own – now suspended due to pressure of work – where I liked to post about cultural life here in Cluj-Napoca, Transylvania, amongst other things. I’ve been asked to introduce myself, so (apart from mentioning that I’m a 47-year-old Caucasian male from Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire) I’m going to repeat my blog strap-line: Gadjo Dilo is a 1997 movie by Tony Gatlif about a Westerner who comes to Romania in search of a singer whose voice he loves. Its title means Stupid/Crazy Foreigner in Romani. What happens to him next is my story….
Romanian music deserves to be better known: this is a country rich in musical tradition, augmented by a heady mix of ethnicities and preserved in relative isolation. Gaw and friends may have heard a bit already – and the plunky-plunk back-beat you either love or hate really quite a lot – and may have the impression that, like Elton John and Morrissey, I have a thing for charismatic women who died before the menopause. And so, this post has to be about Maria Tănase, the “Romanian Edith Piaf”. But much as I love Edith – a woman who, surprisingly, for a heart-broken alcoholic heroin addict, regretted nothing…. you’d think she’d at least have once accidentally tucked her skirt into her knickers when leaving the lavatory or occasionally have forgotten to buy enough milk for the weekend, but apparently not – I reckon Maria was better: more versatile, equally (though differently) dramatic, and an ethnomusicologist to boot, making the Parisian sparrer the “French Tănase”, innit. Pretty much all of Romania turned out for her funeral when she died in 1963 aged 49:
Here she’s singing the nihilist classic Lume Lume*, (with a rather extraordinary – for Romania in 1969 – video homage):
A 3rd clip’s gonna be too much of a good thing for some. But anyway here she is now in the flesh getting shouty – typically, it has to said, for much of this music seems to be based on folk songs belted out across the valley to one’s sheep:
* World, world, sister world
When will I have enough of you
When I give up bread for Lent
And the glass will give up on me
When they hammer the nails on my coffin
When they put me in my grave
That’s how the world is, transient
One is born, another dies
The born one suffers
The dead one rots
Hemel Hempstead, I knew it well, Gadjo.
Sheep, eh? I was once taken to a tavern on Zakynthos, Greece – not Romania, I know – where a couple of blokes played and sang lustily all night. Not knowing a word of Greek, I asked my hostess what they were singing. ”Love! love, love, love….what else?” was her rather dismissive reply.
Lume, lume has something about it that I like. And if anyone there is wondering whatever happened to the moon in that video, I’d advise contacting Postgate & Fermin, c/o Smallfilms, UK.
Fascinating Gadjo and hopefully Transylvania is finally recovering from its annexation into the Hapsburg Dominions and it’s scary years as host to that bloke with the pointy teeth and as for the skirt in knickers wheeze, not confined to Romanians. The last lyrics, very Nana Mouskouriesque.
As for the thing about stiff, post menopausal, charismatic burdz, they do nothing for me I’m afraid, my own preferences are for tall, athletic red heads who can post a sub eight minute lap time on the Nordschleife.
Lume, Lume would make even one of those sheep feel a bit wistful. Lovely timbre to her voice and wonderful violin/accordion combo.
Great stuff, Gadjo. Love that Lume Lume. Like Tom Waits, only not ironic.
Ian, tell me your Hemel Hempstead connection! (Actually, I was only born there – I was raised in a village called Abbots Langley about 3 miles away). Ha, nice story – I love the Greeks too, especially the dismissive women. Yes, and The Clangers connection – I hadn’t spotted it, but you’re absolutely right!
Malty, that’s a hot HOT potato. If you’re a Romanian Transylvanian, things have been going swimmingly since 1918 and the bloke with the pointy teeth was the best leader the country ever had; if you’re Hungarian then the place always was and always should be a dominion of Budapest and you’ll wake up each morning spitting tacks.
Gaw, yes, the sheep must love this stuff, and there’s plenty more ovine-related music should you desire it. She had the most extrordinarily versatile and ‘committed’ voice, and I can hardly begin to express my admiration for her.
Brit, I’m glad you liked it. Irony is not going to sell many records over here, but sing that life is a drudge, Romania is a karzy and that it”s all a bit pointless and you may possibly shift the units 🙂
“That’s how the world is, transient
One is born, another dies
The born one suffers
The dead one rots”
“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy
Hemel, Gadjo? Nothing much, our first marital home (our former home, NW London, being unaffordable on our salaries), worked in the town for a while, and nearby Berkhamsted for another. Probably passed through Abbots Langley a few times, I’m sure.
Excellent post! I’m jealous that you live in Cluj; I once passed through there, but unfortunately learned only afterwards of the existence of the remarkable natural history museum in Babes-Bolyal University; http://www.flickr.com/photos/curiousexpeditions/2197521967/ . Perhaps you know of it.
Pomposa, good heavens, that must be the museum that has always been closed whenever I’ve tried to visit it – I really must make another effort, it looks fabulous! Where were you going when you travelled through Cluj, may I ask?
Worm, I hope that your day got better after that bad start 😉
Ian, yes, I guess Hemel is reasonably affordable and not an onorous commuting distance from London. One of my most abiding memories of the place is as a small child sailing down the River Gade on inflated car inner tubes, which is nice.
Gadjo, I was driving, with a friend, back to France (where I live) from the Black Sea. A memorable trip for many reasons but mainly because we were extremely surprised to discover a new ‘country’ (it wasn’t on our old map). Living where you live you will be all too aware of ‘Transdniestria’, a scary, clichéd little region – we even had to pay a bribe to pass through it (a bribe that was reduced when, due to faulty communication, it appeared that I knew David Beckham, “You know Beckham?” “Well, yes…” “Hey! He know Beckham! He know Beckham!”).
Wow, that lume lume video is curiously cool… and puts Romania firmly on my retro style map. Amazing voice too – though a ittle scary in the last clip. And great to hear you’re a fellow Hertfordshire hedgehog.x
Pomposa, we are aware of the fabled Transdniestria though unfortunately Romanian news doesn’t tend to feature ‘foreign’ stories as much as one would like. But wait, that was a circuitous route from the Black sea back to France, wasn’t it? Or was in the Ukrainian part of the Black Sea you were visiting? Knowing David Beckham gets me fast-tracked sometimes too – knowing Mr. Bean is even more handy 😉
Susan, yes, it is somehow both curious and cool, I agree. Unfortunately your ‘Hertfordshire Hedgehog’ link doesn’t seem to work 🙁
Gadjo, yes, we were in the Ukraine. We went to Kherson, a port the other side of Odessa. My friend is trying to get his barge from Paris to Moscow, not via the Danube but via Belarus (another fun place). We were in Kherson looking for ways get the (canal-going) barge around the Crimea. I don’t know whether you saw Fitzcarraldo…
Pomposa, wow, fascinating – good grief, is that trip actually possible?? I never saw Fitzcarraldo but I did see Herzog’s ‘Aguirre, the Wrath of God’ 😉
Gadjo – it is possible, but you need the preternatural optimism of my friend to even consider it.
http://pics.livejournal.com/bargeeparsons/pic/0003cax6/
The biggest problem is getting through Brest in Belarus. The Bug river forms part of the Polish-Belarussian border (the river bed is strewn with the detritus of various wars). There’s no permanent link between the Bug river and the Pripyat river (which leads ultimately to the Black Sea); the only way to head east is to dig a hole between the two rivers and flood it, thus forming a makeshift lock. Negotiating this operation with the paranoid Belarussian authorities is a supremely enervating experience.