Song Requests

In the city where I lived, there were places with a cozy, tight-knit neighborhood feel, and within them, venues that hosted live music at night. I performed on those stages for many years. Lacking the courage to perform completely on my own back then, I would always share the stage with at least one other musician friend; this partnership wasn't about mere accompaniment, it was about holding the stage together. After all, you never know what people might do once they've had a drink. After a couple of glasses, glasses could fly through the air and rain down upon us.

I witnessed a great deal during my years working in those venues. But right from the start, there was one thing I stood firmly against, something I could never accept: song requests. Even in my most novice years, it struck me as bizarre; I would be astonished when requests came in that were completely outside our style. I used to wonder where these people kept their ears—it certainly wasn't tuned to the stage. When they would ask "do you take requests?" before they had even sat down at their table, fury would flare in my eyes. The sheer nerve of it! Surely a person looks at the stage first, listens a little, and tries to understand? What is this obsession with demanding a request right off the bat?

When the only instruments on stage are a guitar and a concert flute, you don't request entirely unrelated folk songs like Isırgan Otu or Saçlarını Yol Getir, do you? Or, when there are two acoustic guitars on stage and you've only been in the venue for five minutes, you don't sidle up to the stage asking, "Are you playing a halay?" I used to give these people a thoroughly bewildered look and ask, "What do you think?" Don't worry, the DJ will play one in a bit, and you can jump around to your heart's content.

Speaking of the halay, there is another matter I cannot bypass. Our public no longer concludes any event, rally, gig, or recital without a halay. If there is no halay, the stage is deemed empty, and the performer completely ignored. It has reached a point where even the line-up of an event is determined by who sings the halay numbers; even fellow artists believe that if they are going to perform a halay, they must be the final act to take the stage. In short, no matter what you do, unless you sing a halay, it counts for absolutely nothing. A total void!

Let us return to our subject: song requests. I will never forget one night when I was asked to accompany a musician playing the baglama at a certain venue. (He may well have quit the profession after that night; I never saw him anywhere again.) There were a few tables occupied inside; I knew some of the guests, and they knew me too, well aware that I didn't entertain requests. There is a phrase, "the customer is always right"—a concept I have never been able to stomach. Because while the musician is there to perform and the customer is there to listen and enjoy themselves... what about the musician's vision, their labour, what they actually want to create on that stage? Let it go... That night, they made the baglama player perform the exact same folk song at least ten times. I am not exaggerating. The poor musician was thoroughly fed up but carried on singing regardless; I simply walked off the stage, leaving them to sip their rakı to the same repetitive tune. It carried on like that the entire night.

On top of that, there is the business of writing requests on napkins. Supposedly, writing it on a napkin is a mark of politeness, ensuring you don't crudely shout at the stage. Then, before you know it, the beautiful stage is littered with napkins. There goes the ambience. Forgive me, but what even is that? The lighting, the decor, the acoustics... I won't even venture into those areas, otherwise this piece will never end and I won't be able to move on to the actual point I want to address.

However, I must clarify that I exclude those who listen to you with all their heart, who know your repertoire, and who request those songs when they come to hear you perform; such requests warm a person's soul, reminding them once again of the beauty of the path they walk. After I finally walked away from those venues, I couldn't shake the roar out of my head for a long time. I couldn't even maintain relationships with people who listened to that kind of music. Some days, those awful songs still ring in my ears like a persistent nightmare; they are not easily erased from memory.

Meanwhile, I feel as though you might only be picturing folk bars; frankly, when it comes to people from Turkey and music, no matter the genre, anything can happen at any moment. We recently witnessed painful examples of this together. The reason I am writing this piece is Onur Şener, who was brutally murdered at the venue where he worked in Ankara simply because he didn't perform a requested song. It turned out his killers were public officials. Among the public, they are described as thugs. Indeed, barbarism and tyranny ooze from most of them. It isn't difficult to picture their sort. For they have existed since time immemorial. Yet in recent years, they have multiplied in a systematic manner.

I call these types thugs too. They usually wear suits, thrust their hands into their pockets, and pull out thick wads of cash for everyone to see, entirely shameless. They shout, they bray, they make exaggerated gestures, and they poison the night for the stage and everyone else in the venue. And nobody ever stands up to them. What is more, knowing their request and playing it changes absolutely nothing. For the demands of insatiable, miserable personalities are endless. In short, no matter what you do, they leave the venue unhappy and have the nerve to show up again. Do you really think wealth can cover up every disgrace?

Within communities from Turkey, there is no real value placed on art or the artist. This reality degrades further with each passing day; those who perform bizarre antics on television screens are branded as artists, while the musical labourers who perform for hours count for nothing! Reading the news of Onur Şener's murder threw me back into the past; I recalled my own story, reflecting on the struggle I put up for this cause. I resisted taking "Song Requests", fighting to sing what I chose rather than what the audience demanded, and most of the time my voice went unheard. "But my dear Canan, if you only did it this way, they would love you and listen to you more." I had to sit through the advice of people who knew absolutely nothing about music; I was broken, I was hurt, yet I never took a single step back.

Right now, everyone is talking about Onur Şener being brutally slaughtered. Forgive me—they were talking about it. It passed instantly. Within our fast-paced lives, the agenda shifts all too quickly. Once you've posted about it, you just move on! We are too late to change and reform an audience that has been degrading for years; the venues, the bosses, the musicians—we are all to blame. When songs spewing violence or folk tunes inviting murder were requested, we should have said "NO" in unison. Just for once, we should have turned our faces toward the stage and simply listened—we simply should have LISTENED. It may sound harsh, but we nurtured this hatred, this violence together, by choosing to remain blind and deaf to it.

On the very day I concluded this piece, Yusuf Karagündüz, a street musician performing in Hatay, was assaulted by two individuals simply because he didn't know the song they requested, and they smashed a bottle across his face... I have nothing further to say.