My article deals with an unusual story on the roots of a song that has left a
significant imprint on the twentieth century popular music all over the
world. It is the song Misirlou, created somewhere on the territory of the
Ottoman Empire, probably in Asia Minor. The author of this song is unknown.
It was created in the so-called rebetiko musical style, typical of the Greeks
from Asia Minor, who developed that style after the World War I. The first
recordings of this song were made in the 1930s by Greek musicians Tethos
Demetriades and Mihalis Patrinos. In no time, there was a true proliferation
of different versions of this song, in almost every possible musical genre:
jazz, latino, taksym, klezmer, makam, Serbian folk, hip hop, trash metal, pop
and rock?n?roll. A number of these versions are mentioned in the article. The
fact that this song is considered by many nations ? Greeks, Turks, Arabs,
Serbs, Jews, Americans ? as their own, demonstrates its aptitude for
incredible metamorphoses. What attracted me to this song was the story on how
it was appropriated into Serbian folk music by the remarkable composer and
singer Dragoljub Dragan Tokovic. The song was called Lela Vranjanka [Lela,
the girl from Vranje] and became a standard in the so-called ?Vranje folk
music?, marvelously interpreted by the singer Stanisa Stosic. I also compare
various textual versions of Misirlou, in different languages, in order to
show its parallel development in verse.
The mysterious Misirlou