XXXVI. Death is not the end
XXXVI. Death is not the end
A tribute to the Yugoslavia’s Bob Dylan, who died of Coronavirus on February 19. He was 67 years old. These verses of the American legendary songwriter bid farewell to Đorđe Balašević
Hi,
welcome back to BarBalkans, the Italian newsletter whose aim is to give a voice to the Western Balkans’ stories, on the 30th anniversary of the Yugoslav Wars.
Can you feel this silence? Can you hear the melody stuck in your throat?
For a week now, the ancient empty street is too dead for dreaming in Europe.
Because the heart of the greatest Yugoslav songwriter of all times stopped beating, due to complications from Coronavirus disease.
Today, we will pay homage to Đorđe Balašević with the verses of Bob Dylan.
But just remember that death is not the end.
Mr. Tamburine Man
Đorđe Balašević died on February 19. On a mid-winter evening he started walking on the dark side of the road.
Thousand of people, from Zagreb to Belgrade, from Novi Sad to Sarajevo, were shocked by the death of the Yugoslavia’s Bob Dylan. Goodbye is too good a word, and for one evening all of them were united in grief.
He was 67 years old, loved by many, hated by many others. Because he was an innocent man in a living hell and brotherhood was the cornerstone of his life.
His verses had the power to gather ‘round people. The same people who now find themselves having to cry a while, to feel pain in all the cities of the former Yugoslavia.
An impromptu concert in front of the Novi Sad cathedral. A staging of his verses along the Ilica, the main street in the center of Zagreb:
«If I could once more walk down Ilica, so I could write bećarac in Cyrillic».
Bećarac - a form of folk song - in Cyrillic was really written by the kids of yesterday, left blindly here to stand.
Born in 1953 in Novi Sad, little Đorđe dreamt to be a real footballer, the champion of the world.
But life had something else in store for him. After graduation, he told his mama to put his guns in the ground and he joined the acoustic band Žetva. This was the turning point in his life.
When he joined the next band Rani Mraz, he knew that there’s no success like failure and that failure’s no success at all. Računajte na nas (“Count on us”) was the hymn of youth who believed in Tito’s dream. The forever young people who dreamt of continuing the revolutionary struggle for a better world.
Forty years of career, an unreachable lyricism, a masked melancholy mixed with bitter humor. Mr. Tamburine Man tap into the dialect of all the Balkan peoples, up to inventing neologisms when he knew that life is but a joke.
Balašević sang of nostalgia and love and only love, of wine and peace, of people’s daily life. Dreamers and barefoot servants too, decadent and idealists, girls who make love just like women.
He tried all musical worlds, from folk to blues, from rock to waltz, to sevdalinka (a form of folk song). He knew how to mix electronic and traditional instruments in vague traces of skipping reels of rhyme.
Wherever he went - Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia or Slovenia - his concerts were like the jingle jangle mornin’. Hours of songs and stand-ups, with jokes about his fellow citizens, his family, his job or politics.
Balašević divided singers into two categories:
«There are the ‘real ones’, the handsome guys who dance, dress well and vocalize. Then there are singers like me, who hum and recite poems, regardless of baldness and how round is their waist».
When someone told him that his songs were too sentimental, he replied that «so is life». Don’t have the inclination to look back on any mistake.
Cartoonist Midhat Kapetanović paid a tribute to the memory of Balašević. The illustration shows Zagi the squirrel, mascot of Zagreb (1987 Universiade), Vučko the wolf, mascot of Sarajevo (1984 Winter Olympics) and Mestrovic Pobednik (the Victor monument), symbol of Belgrade, united in grief.
Vučko comforts a white bunny and there are two tangerines at their feet, recalling the tradition of throwing tangerines and white toy bunnies on stage when Balašević sang “Neki novi klinci” (“Some new kids”).
Blowin' in the wind
That was the time of Tito’s ideal of a non-aligned Yugoslavia.
Balašević was the best interpreter of the Yugoslav brotherhood. He was not a mouthpiece for the nationalist regime, as you could hear from the idiot wind, blowing every time his detractors moved their mouth.
Because they were not able to understand that universal emotions cannot be limited by artificial or ethnic borders.
He was the voice of the generation born after the war, the generation that listened to the stories about the partisan war as they were chimes of freedom.
The generation that was knockin’ on Western world’s door, trying to imitate its music and fashion, thanks to the moderate liberalism guaranteed by Tito.
Tito was the Hurricane, the guide who could hold together such different peoples. His death in 1980 opened a season of slippery and profound uncertainty.
From Triput sam video Tita (“I saw Tito three times”) to Samo da rata ne bude (“Just let there be no war”), he dedicated several songs to the dead president of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
The times they are a-changin’. It dates back to 1987 “Just let there be no war”, 4 years before the beginning of the Yugoslav Wars.
Something had already been in the air since Tito’s death in 1980. The «black train» that carried his body was the same that took the entire Socialist Federal Republic away.
Everyone was there to say goodbye, good luck. But not the nationalist elites, from Serbia to Croatia: the fate of Yugoslavia was already marked, the trial was a pig-circus, it never had a chance.
From the very first moment, the Yugoslavia’s Bob Dylan lashed out against the nationalist rhetoric that brought the country to civil war.
He was neither Serbian nor Croatian nor Bosnian nor Slovenian. He was the son of Yugoslavia, songwriter of pacifist hymns, tragically unheard.
But the evening’s empire has returned into sand.
In his homeland, Balašević stood up against Slobodan Milošević and became the man the authorities came to blame, because he did not want to enlist.
«War is my generation’s curse. Not just because we did not do anything to deserve it, but also because we let them ruin future generations. The image of a small, courageous and honest country has deteriorated so much that I no longer know how we can fix it».
War was inevitably on his lips in the Nineties. Four years later, “Just let there be no war” was sung by young Yugoslav people and helped them to survive in that jailhouse where they tried to turn a man into a mouse.
The real masterpiece was Čovek sa mesecom u očima (“The man with the moon in his eyes”), dated 1993. It is a poem dedicated to Vukovar’s devastation, which also occurred to other Bosnian and Croatian cities.
All the memories that were blowin’ in the wind, because of the war. The work in the countryside, rooster crowing at the break of dawn, the smell of inns, all the pretty maids and all the old queens, the melody of mandolins at wedding parties.
Everything that was taken away by warlords of sorrow and queens of tomorrow.
«You have no idea, dear brothers,
you don't know
what means to kill a city».
In 1999 he criticized NATO bombings, with Dok gori nebo nad Novim Sadom (“While the sky over Novi Sad burns”). This is a song about the destruction of the bridge over the Danube, in his hometown:
Let’s be honest,
it wasn’t a special bridge,
one of those built to be looked at.
No, it was one of the bridges
built to have a look
and to get the first kiss».
The previous year, Balašević was invited in Sarajevo for a reconciliation concert. Many people in Serbia spoke of the worst fear that can ever be hurled.
In the middle of the concert, he paused:
«I was asked if I was scared to come here… Well, if I were afraid of something, it would be in Sarajevo that I would come and hide. Sarajevans were in the crosshairs for five years, how could I not do the same for two days?»
How many times can a man turn his head, pretending he just doesn’t see?
During the Milošević regime Balašević was banned from national radio and television.
In 2000 he published Devedesete (“The Nineties”), a collection of ballads full of symbolic references to the Serbian dictator and the disaster of wars. After the fall of Milošević, Živeti slobodno (“To live free”) became the hymn of equality, liberty,
humility, simplicity.
He continued to condemn powerful people who had done nothin’ but build to destroy. Because he could see through their masks.
It was clear with the nationalist revival of the current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, that inspired him with the song Dno dna ("Rock-bottom”).
It was duly censored by the national radio. And punctually attacked by the newspapers.
But Balašević kept his artistic independence until the end. Because Đorđe was the man who prophesied with his pen.
And don’t think twice, it’s all right: “Count on us”. The generational anthem that he never sang publicly again.
He was too ashamed of those who betrayed the promises of Yugoslavia.
“Count on us”, let us die in our footsteps, before we go down under the ground. Partisans’ blood flows through our veins, we will be peace-keepers.
Hey, Mr. Tamburine Man, take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin’ ship.
In the jingle jangle mornin’ I’ll come followin’ you, Đorđe Balašević.
The Yugoslavia’s Bob Dylan.
Pit stop. Sittin’ at the BarBalkans
We have reached the end of this piece of road. A tribute to Balašević with the verses of Bob Dylan.
Also on our bar, the BarBalkans, we want to pay homage to the man who could have said: I can’t get no relief, businessmen, they drink my wine.
A bottle of wine made up of great hopes of fraternity among Balkan peoples, emptied by cruel disappointments. Because the whole world’s a bottle and life’s but a dream, and when the bottle gets empty, it sure ain’t worth a damn.
To the bitter disappointments brought by nationalisms, when he could no longer fight, Balašević sorrowfully sang:
«Give me wine, let the wine be poured
as long as the days last,
but especially nights.
Because sadness is there,
that faithfull friend of mine.
And when there is sadness,
then we should drink».
The greatest poet from the Balkans has gone. And his tears flowed like wine.
Let’s continue the BarBalkans journey. We’ll meet again in a week, for the 37th stop.
A big hug and have a good journey!
«Within us is the fate of the future days
and some are perhaps frightened of it.
Partisans’ blood flows through our veins
and we know what are we here for.
Count on us»- “Računajte na nas”
Đorđe Balašević
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XIX. Miss (you) Sarajevo, ep. 2 (interview with Bill Carter, on the the famous song by the U2 and Luciano Pavarotti)
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