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The New states gave us another widely divided field! Eventually the Singing Sisters of Syracuse, with their ragtime piano and kazoo-laden version of “Shine On Harvest Moon,” managed to outpace a strong group of contenders** for the win.
You know what wasn’t a widely divided field? The votes for O, where the Ottoman Empire ran away with 68% of the vote. Were you really expecting actual Ottoman music and research? Will you get any? Of course, this is a serious and sacred
responsibility.**
[** — blatant lies]
The Songs
1.) Rondo Alla Turca
You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever heard this done as a symphonic piece instead of piano music until now. I’m going to assume everyone here has watched “Amadeus,” but if you haven’t, now you have.
The Ottomans were fast on their way to becoming the Sick Old Man of Europe by this point, and sparking a fascinating movement among many corners of Christianity — prophetic historicism interpreted them straight into Daniel 11, where their wars were a literal countdown to the end of time. So that was a wild time to be alive. Meanwhile Mozart’s up there checking out an admittedly impressive set of bosoms and getting an entire candelabra heaved at his head. See, I told you to watch “Amadeus.”
Are we just going to ignore that while the Turkish Janissary music was all the rage in Europe at this time, largely thanks to their unique percussion (cymbals, triangles, bass drums, and Turkish crescents), this song doesn’t actually have anything to do with the Ottoman Empire? You bet your sweet ass we are.
2.) Ceddin Deden
Oh fine, let’s listen to some actual Ottoman Empire music. Performed by the Red Army Choir, which is admittedly weird in light of Russian/Ottoman relations during the Napoleonic Era, and the Crimean War, and World War I, and maybe I should stop there. But they’re performing in Turkey, and the crowd sounds wildly appreciative, so let’s call it good.
Vaguely amusing backstory: Back in 1826, Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissaries, and a big revolt ensued. So he didn’t just disband the soldiers, he outright banned the military bands, destroyed the instruments, and burned the sheet music.
When the Ottomans decided to revive the bands in the early 20th Century to boost nationalist morale, they had a big old problem: Everyone looked around and went “Uh, we have no good way to play the traditional songs.”
So they recycled an old melody, added new lyrics, and called it “Your Ancestor and Your Grandfather.” Basically it’s reminding the Ottoman Army of their brave past (which I suppose was sort of necessary; they weren’t even the Sick Man of Europe in 1911, their territorial sovereignty over the Balkans returned a 404 error). Screaming about loving their empire with pride, slaying the enemy of their country, and letting the damned suffer in disgrace. You know, the usual motifs Air Supply would popularize. A million Klingons somewhere just beamed with pride and have no idea why.
I freely admit I would crap my pants and run the other direction if an army showed up playing this at me.
3.) Istanbul, Not Constantinople
Oh hello, They Might Be Giants and Tiny Toons Adventures mashup.
No kidding, this aired on national TV in 1990 and nobody batted an eye. Why? HOW? That’s nobody’s business but the Turks.
How did we go from this to Minecraft YouTube brain rot and Blippi and Cocomelon? Kids of today, I am so sorry. At least you have Bluey, I guess?
(Aside: Speaking of terrible new cartoons, I’m just now learning about the HBO attempt at a TV-MA rated Scooby-Doo origin story series for Velma, and it’s rated 1.7 stars of 10 on IMDB with 82,000 votes? That is impressively terrible. That’s like “offer Karl Dorrell a head coaching position in Colorado, what could go wrong” territory. I don’t really know what I missed, and I’m thankful for it.)
Anyway, this was originally a song from the 1950s by the Four Lads. Feel free to look that up. Let’s play some more historical Ottoman music now!
4.) Plevna March
Okay this is straight up awesome. This is some “load up on kofta and hummus, boys, we’re about to go lay out some godless Byzantines” levels of inspiring.
Best part: This is about Osman Nuri Pasha, who was such a badass they wrote a paean to him for losing.
During the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, Osman here was tasked with defending the city of Pleven (now located in Bulgaria). He was wildly outnumbered to begin with, but kept fighting off Russian attacks in increasingly hilarious fashion. It reached the point where the Russians insisted on the Romanians sending an additional 40,000 soldiers for assistance.
So now, outnumbered 100,000 to 30,000, the invading army goes “what could possibly go wrong?” Over 20,000 casualties at the hands of Winchester 1866 repeaters later, the Russians finally have two thoughts:
- “You know, maybe arming soldiers with single-shot Berdan rifles is a really stupid idea.”
- “Fine, we’ll just sit here and starve them out,” which eventually worked after months.
The Russians refused to accept his sword in surrender and just treated him as a visiting dignitary because they were so glad to be done fighting this guy.
I mean, would you mess with a man who looks like this?
5.) Yor, The Hunter from the Future
Back in the early 80s, when Conan set the whole sword and sandals movie craze on fire, an Italian crew ran off to Turkey to get in on the action too. But you can’t have a movie without a theme song, so they hired the finest first musicians who knew a few English words they could find.
And that’s how we wound up with lyrics like “He never sees the sun” playing while Yor runs through the desert at noontime during the opening credits.
“Lost in the world of past. In the echo of ancient blast. There is a man from future. A man of mystery. YOR’S WORLD.”
The evil guy (the OVERLORD, played by incredible, over the top camp by the ever-reliable John Steiner) wanted to make Yor and Ka-Laa, two cave people / nuclear holocaust survivors (I think?) bonk to create a master race of human-android hybrids, but then he gets speared by a barber pole. I have no idea what I just typed.
I honestly don’t know how MST3K never managed to get their hands on this.
I’m more than a little sad this soundtrack didn’t go platinum on the charts. Perhaps it did in a remote village in the hinterlands of Tibet. But probably not.
Honorable Mentions
Hücum Marşı (Attack March)
They’d play this one when commencing a frontal assault. I kinda think it’s more menacing before it speeds up at 1:15 and comes perilously close to Looney Tunes territory. Speaking of…
Ickity Ackity Oop
Flippity flappity floop. (Open sarsaparilla? Open saddle soap?)
Sibel Tüzün – Superstar
I think we’re legally obligated to include a Eurovision song…oh, apparently Turkey dropped out after 2013. I wonder what they used 20 years ago, then.
…oh my God. This cannot possibly be real. A blond woman with tattoos and a miniskirt, like some sort of proto-Lady Gaga, shrieking off-key. I would’ve guessed for 1000 years and never picked this out as Turkey’s entry.
It’s like finding out your college crush became a middle-aged hardcore Facebook Libertarian, except the kind who gets mad at Thomas Massie every time he votes against Trump. Wait no, that makes no sense.
It’s like a quiet honors student joining a cult to worship an anthropomorphic bowling pin. ooooooooooh
Vote in the Poll
Let’s run this thing through Monday night, for all the people who want to start off their work week right.
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(“what are you doing?!” I have no idea.)
