A few months back, looking to refresh my music playlist, I asked my good friend Durukal Gün to recommend some Turkish bands. Out of the bunch of truly great singers suggested by my friend, there was one that stood out for me: Mor ve Ötesi.
I have since listened to and memorised the lyrics of tens of their songs, but among them one song moves me more than others. True, all of their songs have deep lyrics and the lead vocalist Harun Tekin has an exceptional voice but this song is perhaps the only one that comes close to moving me to tears. And it is not a love song.
1945 is perhaps the most historical song I have ever known. In a few lines the song contains what I feel about history, which is my future profession, and war, which is my main interest in history. The chorus is humanism at its simplest, and I know that I will remember it every time I see or hear someone who justifies wars, past, present or future. It goes like this in my unprofessional translation:
The year is 1945
They, too, were human beings
And they believed in love
They believed in respect
Just like you
Just like me
The video above does a great job in driving home the gist of the song. I don't know where that footage comes from and I doubt it is the official music video. Some guy probably dug up some historical footage and edited it into a film, but the Hiroshima theme fits well with the lyrics.
I think of not only Hiroshima, though, when I listen to the song. I think of Dresden and the children burnt alive there. Of Tokyo under the wings of Allied (mostly American) planes about to drop their incendiary bombs. I think, of course, of the burnt Soviet towns and villages, of the babies smashed against the wall by Nazi soldiers in the presence of their mothers. Needless to say I think of the millions who suffocated in gas chambers, were shot by firing squads, bayonetted, killed with a sword. I think of the Holocaust, the camps, the system created by humans to exterminate other humans. I think of millions that died in that single year, 1945, millions of innocent people, children especially, on both sides of the frontline.
And while I am writing these lines, there are children dying in wars somewhere in the world. And there will be many more deaths in future wars. People, children, just like me and you, with dreams, love, hope and dignity. This is the thought that turns my world upside down.
In my ignorance I would be forgiven, perhaps, for not knowing the real author of the song, until one day I read a comment on YouTube that the song was originally written by Turkish singer-composer of Armenian descent, Onno Tunç, for his friend and long time collaborator Sezen Aksu. Here's her version, sung decades ago, but equally beautiful.
Tunç tragically died in 1996 when his plane, which he was piloting, crashed in some mountains between Ankara and Istanbul. But this song on its own is, I think, a worthy legacy, worth some other singers' whole careers.
