02/04/2011

Lyla


The last column was about the oddity of places no longer here but that still live on in people’s minds. Those are generally of the local and small-scale: a shop or block of apartments or a cinema or a park. The same thought process, however, can apply on a much grander scale, to whole countries, those which no longer can be found on a map of the world but which still inhabit imagination and songs. Some sound so romantic you can hardly believe they were real places. Like Bohemia – imagine living there. You could probably lie on a sofa all day reading a French novel and drinking absinthe out of the bottle. Reference was made in an earlier column to the continuing allure of Siam in songs – probably in many mental maps being somewhere east of Shangri-La rather than being the more prosaic Thailand. The Beatles’ Back in the USSR is now a historical statement. Johnny Wakelin’s 1976 hit about Muhammad Ali, In Zaire, would have to be re-released as In the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There was Cat Steven’s pre-Sri Lankan Ceylon City. Then there is, of course, an example nearer to home, with Yugoslavia – which was slowly broken up from the mid-1990’s and had vanished from maps of Europe by 2003.

One of the striking things about songs about Yugoslavia, and also about the countries that emerged from its breaking-up, is the bleakness of many of them, coming from the period of the Balkan conflicts. One of the best known is The Cranberries’ Bosnia, from 1996, one of those songs whose good intentions is marred by clumsy lyrics :’Bosnia was so unkind, Sarajevo changed my mind’. Like Culture Club’s War Song -‘ war is stupid, people are stupid’. (These are different from another group of songs whose lyrics can actually seem at odds with the supposed overall theme. Take, for example, the 1970 hit by Blue Mink, Melting Pot, a song about multi-cultural harmony by a group of session players that included soul singer Madeline Bell and with a second verse starting ‘Mm, curly latin kinkies, mixed with yellow Chinkees’. Or Siouxsie and the Banshees’ 1978 ode to a Chislehurst Chinese takeaway, Hong Kong Garden, which Siouxsie described as a tribute to the restaurant staff being harassed by National Front skinheads - ‘Slanted eyes meet a new sunrise, a race of bodies small in size, chicken chow mein and chop suey’ ..).

Other songs about Yugoslavia have been as equally dark as Bosnia. They have included the forceful Yugoslavia by Tatu about the NATO bombing of Serbia - ‘For the death during the spring rain, For that I never came to your rescue ,Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...’ - and Dubrovnik is Burning by the Croatian Liberation Front (an American-Croatian rap group). And the song here , Lyla ,by Cocorosie from their 2004 album La Maison de Mon Reve, the song title inspired by the film Lilya-4-Ever, about a teenage girl from Estonia forced into prostitution.(Note the track is not distorted, it is supposed to sound like this!).

Cocorosie are 2 American-born sisters based in Paris whose work tends to the experimental – few conventional musical instruments are used - and is perhaps best listened to in small doses. What keeps this track this side of irritatingly discordant is the overall sense of resignation and bleakness from the lyrics and tone - the sound of tower blocks and graffiti - combined with vocals that seem dreamlike to the point of drifting away: one reviewer described their sound as the sort of voices you might hear coming through at a séance. As the ‘It’s not Yugoslavia,’ refrain comes round you can almost see the country dissolving in front of your eyes. There goes Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Slovenia, here comes the capitalism of MacDonalds and child prostitution. ‘It’s hardly Yugoslavia at all’.

As it happens, my own images and memories are very different from the ones of the song, or any of those mentioned above. Dubrovnik in 2002 was not burning any more but appeared as a fairy - book medieval walled town of winding alleys and archways, the newer tiles on the redbrick roofs marking where rockets had landed ten years before. On the Trebizat River in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the pastoral scenery of overhanging trees and flowers and butterflies could have been an English river in Surrey or Oxfordshire, a surreal thought at the time when put against the Cranberries' song. Hardly Yugoslavia at all.

58 comments:

  1. Hahaa thanks Geoff for noting that the track is supposed to sound like that, i was definitely about to write in and say that I thought the recording had gotten damaged. :)

    I never really understood what relationship between "Yugoslavia" and then Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Slovenia. So I really appreciate the history lesson as well as the music commentary here!!

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  2. Bohemia still exists though Geoff, it's here in San Francisco!

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  3. I totally agree with this idea: "As the ‘It’s not Yugoslavia,’ refrain comes round you can almost see the country dissolving in front of your eyes"... Fascinating column Geoff!

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  4. Love the idea that a song can sound like tower blocks and graffiti - this one definitely does!

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  5. Enjoyed your column. Here's a column I wrote myself about visiting the area: http://yanksview.com/2010/11/about-bosnia-and-herzegovina/

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  6. Dear Geoff,

    You said Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Slovenia, but don't forget Montenegro!

    For several years now, Montenegro is internationally regarded a place to be. In 2010, the New York Times listed Montenegro as one of ‘The 31 Places to Go’ and at the end of 2009 the National Geographic Traveler identified the country as one of ’50 Places of a Lifetime’. The World Travel and Tourism Council regularly confers the award “Tourism for Tomorrow“ for successful destination management – Montenegro was among the three finalists in 2010.

    Visitors here equally confirm all our efforts with their rewards: 96 per cent recommend Montenegro as a travel destination, and nine out of ten intend to come back.

    Saša Radović
    Managing Director of the National Tourism Organization of Montenegro

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  7. A very topical choice this week Geoff! - http://www.sfexaminer.com/news/2011/04/montenegro-kosovo-census-ethnically-tense

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  8. I am a bit obsessed with missing countries - the ones that don't exist on a map anymore. It's just such a fascinating idea. Like Bengal, which got absorbed into India and Bangladesh. Or the whole Ottoman Empire.

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  9. Or Persia, which I think is now Iran. Or Zanzibar, now part of the newish Tanzania. And of course Prussia, which always confuses me (is it Germany? it is Poland? It's both, I think).

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  10. And Rhodesia has been Zimbabwe since 1980.

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  11. And Abyssinia. Only just found out it doesn't exist anymore (or it does, but it's called Ethiopia!).

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  12. Then there are those countries that don't exist but should. Like Iraqistan - a country in the middle-east that functions as both Iraq and Afghanistan. This way America only has to fight one hugely expensive war, thus saving money.

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  13. I am sure some people think Iraqistan exists!

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  14. Or a nation where the Prime Minister is whoever is at Number One in the UK pop music charts.

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  15. I think you're right, Geoff.

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  16. And don't forget Biafra, which only existed for 3 years from 1967 and 1970.

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  17. If you were to examine an 1816 map of the world, you would discover that half the countries represented there no longer exist. Here is my book about this topic, in case you're interested: http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8552.html

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  18. And Transylvania and Valaqui no longer exist. I love this old map (from Paris around 1778) that shows them though: http://www.sephardicstudies.org/images/v1a.jpg

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  19. Translvania is one of those places that people arent sure really existed or was made up for the Dracula novel

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  20. And the Aztec Empire. I wish that still existed. It does in my head, somewhere near Egypt.

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  21. Yes, and to be honest I was one of those people who thought it was a place from stories, but of course it is a region in actual Romania.

    Also, it does appear in song too - including "Transylvania" by McFly on their third album Motion In The Ocean.

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  22. I was sad when I found out that Bavaria doesn't exist on a map anymore.

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  23. And there is Redonda - currently within the nation of Antigua, but it was briefly an independent kingdom. In 1865, Matthew Dowdy Shiell, who resided on the nearby island of Montserrat, proclaimed himself King of Redonda, as no nation had bothered to extend a claim yet. Four years later, the British Empire annexed Redonda, but allowed Shiell to retain the title of King. The kingship was passed on to his son, and from there things get fuzzy. There are currently several claimants to the throne, who maintain a barrage of mutual invective.

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  24. And the Confederate States of America. Although Geoff, you might enjoy this movie, which imagines that the CSA does still exist because it won the Civil War: http://www.csathemovie.com/index2.html. For the film itself online, see www.youtube.com/user/Fragglesack#p/u - it is actually on Youtube in 9 parts (the parts are listed on the right side of this person's profile

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  25. Also, the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. Which I think only existed for a few months in 1918.

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  26. And the Republic of Yucatán, which became part of Mexico............

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  27. And the Republic of Formosa which existed for about 6 months in 1895 after the island was ceded by China to Japan and the local gentry and officials declared a tributary republic in a failed attempt to avert Japanese annexation.

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  28. Uhm....Palestine?

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  29. I love the history of the Great Republic of Rough and Ready - founded near a rich seam of gold during the California Gold Rush in 1849. By 1850, the town was thriving, and over a thousand people voted in the elections of that year. The miners seceded from the Union that year to protest a new ore tax. However, the Roughandreadians rejoined the United States in June of the next year, in order to become the site of a new post office.

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  30. What about the United Arab Republic. In 1958, Egypt and Syria were united under the leadership of Gamal Nasser and his Arab Ba'ath Party. The UAR was heavily dominated by the Egyptians, who instituted a program of centralization on the Egyptian model in Syria. Yemen joined the UAR soon afterward, and the loose federation was retitled the Union of Arab States. Syria seceded from the UAR to protest Egyptian domination in 1961, and Yemen left soon after. Egypt retained the name for several years before grudgingly allowing the UAR to die.

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  31. And the Empire of the United States. Joshua Norton, a resident of San Francisco, declared himself Emperor of the United States in 1859. He began issuing proclamations, which were promptly reported by the local press to attract readers. Shortly thereafter, he dissolved Congress. During the Civil War, he also declared himself Protector of Mexico against the French and summoned Lincoln and Davis to San Francisco to settle their differences. Arrested for lunacy, he was promptly released by the chief of police, who feared public outrage. He supported himself by selling bonds redeemable from the Imperial Treasury, which were demanded mainly for his autograph. Norton I was famous across the nation, and 10,000 people attended his funeral in 1880.

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  32. And Wallachia, which I think united with Moldavia to form Romania.

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  33. Then there is the Isle of Dogs, a small peninsula in the middle of London, formed by a bend in the River Thames. The area was historically a dumping ground for poor Londoners, who often felt they received an unfairly small allocation of resources. In 1970, a group of residents declared independence in protest, barricading the single road leading into the Isle. A Labour city councilman named Ted Johns was elected President. The protest served its purpose; extra funding was allocated, and the Republic was dissolved. (It turns out this was merely the beginning of the area's woes; in the name of urban renewal, the government turned the Isle of Dogs into Canary Wharf, burying the district's history under an abysmal pile of postmodern "architecture").

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  34. And of course SEALAND! I love the history of Sealand. In the 1960s, a pirate station began transmitting from a ship outside the three-mile limit of the UK's waters, Roy Bates and Ronan O'Rohilly, both owners of pirate radio stations, got to thinking that the North Sea at this time was littered with Second World War-vintage radar platforms. In 1966, Bates and O'Rohilly occupied one and called it Sealand. They began hatching moneymaking schemes ranging from not just a pirate radio station, but also a gambling resort and a corporate tax haven. But the two men fought and in 1967 Bates declared Sealand's independence and himself Prince Roy on September 2. When a Royal Navy ship demanded that Bates abandon the platform, the Prince opened fire. On a visit to England later that year, Bates was arrested and brought before a British court on a number of charges related to the incident. The case was dismissed in October of 1968; the court agreed that Prince Roy's Sealand was outside of British jurisdiction. Sealand stayed out of the news until a German businessman toured Sealand a few years later. During negotiations, the German’s hired men kidnapped the crown prince and set him back ashore. Prince Roy rapidly got together an army, hired a helicopter, and retook the tower. Since the German had accepted Sealand citizenship, Bates arrested him for treason. Over the next seven weeks, the German government repeatedly appealed to the British Foreign Office, which insisted that it had no jurisdiction. Further vindicated, Bates eventually released the German without payment of his 75,000 Deutschmark fine. The next uproar took place during the Falkland Islands War of 1982. Argentina's initial success rapidly eroded, and the Argentines conceived of a desperate plan. They contacted Bates and asked to lease Sealand as a missile base, hoping to destroy British morale. Bates swallowed down his mercenary impulses and declined. In a completely unrelated matter, Britain extended its territorial waters to the 20 kilometer limit later that year, soon after dynamiting another tower near Sealand. Prince Roy refused to give up the ship, though. In 1999, he entered into negotiations with HavenCo to lease the entire nation. HavenCo (naturally) now plans to turn Sealand into an offshore data haven. Since the EU has already extended Sealand a certain degree of de facto recognition, it remains to be seen how these plans will develop.

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  35. hello, here is a link to my song that you mention, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbYwBy7BbXE. You may like my book too, Geoff: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Long-Time-Running-Johnny-Wakelin/dp/1846243211. Look me up if you're ever in Brighton, we can have a beer!

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  36. Here is that strange Cranberries song that Geoff talked about, for anyone else interested - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asywK5J7LiU. I think the ending of this song sums up just how strange it is....

    When do the saints go marching in?
    When do the saints go marching in?
    When do the saints go marching in?
    When do the saints go marching in?

    Rummmpatitum, Rummmpatitum
    Traboo, Traboo, Traboo

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  37. The accompanying video is odd too-seems to be Northern Ireland

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  38. Thanks for mentioning the TATU song. I think it's worth posting all the lyrics (in translation), as they are really beautiful:

    In the evening carried over the Danube
    White flowers, white flowers, white flowers...

    And my memory asks for a melody
    From long ago, long ago, long ago...

    But like a flock of lost birds,
    Our song's simple words disperse...

    You're heading into fire, Yugoslavia!
    Without me! Without me! Without me!

    For the downpour of lead during that night,
    For the reason that I'm not by your side,
    Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

    For the death during the spring rain
    For that I never came to your rescue
    Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

    Like a confused dark-eyed girl,
    You stand on the other side.
    But to reach over to that side
    I cannot, I cannot, I cannot...

    In the evening carried over the Danube
    White flowers, white flowers, white flowers

    And my memory asks for a melody
    From long ago, long ago, long ago...

    For that night during the downpour of lead
    For that I wasn't there by your side,
    Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

    For the death during the spring rain
    For that I never came to your rescue
    Forgive me my sister, Yugoslavia...

    And the song is here:
    www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Git1piHts

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  39. Yes I think you're right.... Maybe another sign that it's not really a song about Yugoslavia in any real way... There should maybe be a new category of songs about places - songs nominally about one place but really about another!

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  40. I liked the photo you posted Geoff.

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  41. I couldn't find a video or audio for the song "Dubrovnik is Burning" but I did find another song by that group, the Croatian Liberation Front, in case anyone is interested:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt9Dfd_7W1c

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  42. I enjoyed this column. We (CocoRosie) are definitely immersed in the idea of place. One of our first creative moments was a series of photographs of half demolished buildings in Paris. Our first sonic idea was to create a soundtrack to accompany these photographs, and that's what became our first record, La Maison de Mon Reve. And in general, we think of our songs as little films. We start off with soundscapes that set the tone of the music before we actually write the melodies. There's a specific location and time that each song comes from. So location - a sense of play - is key

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  43. I saw the film you mention Geoff, Lilya 4-Ever. It is brilliant, but gut-wrenching. And really does justice to the issue of human trafficking. Which is often so exploited and sentimentalised. The director said about the film that it "is a statement about human dignity, a quality that is constantly being eroded and corrupted in the world today by forces like political systems and a materialistic culture that allows anything and everything to be bought or sold". I recommend it to anyone as a film.

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  44. Here is our song that you mentioned, Blue Mink's Melting Pot - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MEGYmiYHfLU. I know it has some strange lyrics. It was our first song really. But it was intended as an anti-racist song. About encouraging different ethnic groups to mix. Racial harmony.

    It was covered by Boyzone later. And Culture Club. And if you ignore the first few lines of the song, the rest of the lyrics aren't so bad:

    You know you lump it all together
    And you got a recipe for a get along scene
    Oh what a beautiful dream
    If it could only come true, you know, you know

    What we need is a great big melting pot
    Big enough enough enough to take
    The world and all its got And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
    And turn out coffee coloured people by the score

    Rabbis and the friars
    Vishnus and the gurus
    We got the Beatles or the Sun God
    Well it really doesn't matter what religion you choose
    And be thankful little Mrs. Graceful
    You know that livin' could be tasteful
    We should all get together in a lovin machine
    I think I'll call up the queen
    It' s only fair that she knows, you know, you know

    What we need is a great big melting pot
    Big enough enough enough to take
    The world and all its got And keep it stirring for a hundred years or more
    And turn out coffee coloured people by the score

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  45. Here is that Siouxsie and the Banshees’ song Hong Kong Garden that Geoff mentioned: www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgE41B3JQF8&.... I agree it's a pretty strange approach to anti-racism.....

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  46. I love on this song how toys, penny whistles and little drum machines keep the beats: they’re reminders of sinister deeds so that the magic of childhood is built up then trashed like a sandcastle even in the song, just as in child trafficking.

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  47. I love this band - these sisters creates beautiful sounds with childrens toys and classical instruments. Amazing freak folk music. Bianca's voice is so witch-y, as in magical. CocoRosie is pure perfection.

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  48. This band seems very, uhm, experimental... as though Ouija boards and wax cylinders are vital pieces of equipment for them.... Which is cool, but my ears are going to need to adjust!

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  49. Amazing! Wish I'd stumbled across this group sooner! It's an eclectic aural cornucopia!!

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  50. They also have a song called "Japan" with lyrics like “everybody wants to go to iraq / but once they go, they dont come back /bringing peanut butter jelly and other snacks / we might have our freedom, but we’re still on crack"..........

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  51. No doubt to many their music is beguiling but I struggled with this one Geoff! Hugely enjoyed the column itself though, all about vanished countries........

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  52. I saw them live in San Francisco last year - it was superb. They were dressed like Great Expectations Ms. Havisham (the man-hating woman who wore a wedding dress for 30 years after being left at the aisle) and the Scarlet Letter’s Hester (the Puritan woman who was forced to wear the mark of an adulterer when she became pregnant out of wedlock). The entire show took on an air of a haunted child’s picnic frozen in time. Synthetic album beats and sounds were recreated with a grand piano, guitars, a harp, a harpsichord, and a human beat box. Yes, a human beat box—which was the backbone of every song. The sounds were combined with projector imagery of carnival rides, children’s toys, and waves crashing on an isolated beach. Their pure, enthusiastic energy was contagious.

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  53. I suspect anyone's enjoyment of their music depends on their tolerance for found sounds – telephones ringing, cats meowing, etc.....

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  54. Thanks for the comments Madeline. I think people took the song in the spirit it was intended

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  55. Saw this book and thought you might find it interesting Geoff: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/active/8432001/New-study-chronicles-the-inspiring-history-of-potest-songs.html?sms_ss=email&at_xt=4d9ea59137e6ac90%2C0

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  56. Thanks for the reference -it looks an interesting book

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