Crazy Turks – 1 / Müslüm Gürses & the Razor Blades

or: The Most Bizarre David Bowie Cover of All Times

This is the untold story of a genre that puts goth, emo and all other sad and desperate musical styles world-wide to shame. The story of songs of which some were banned from the Turkish public broadcaster in the 70s and 80s, because they “glorified alcoholism and suicide” and “condemned the existing universal order and disrupted people’s mood”. The story of the King of Tragedy, his realm of suffering, and his fan-army that marches in blood-soaked minor.

Arabesk (or Arabesque) is a predominantly Byzantine and Arabic influenced style of music created in Turkey, with the psychedelic Orhan Gencebay generally being considered the founder of the genre (though he disagrees with the usage of the term ‘Arabesk’). Arabesk music was particularly popular in the decades from the 1960s through the 1990s and broke all sales records in Turkey. The genre’s sentimental texts deal with unfulfilled love, universal suffering in the world, longing, strife and melancholy issues. Think of Country music and multiply its suffering-factor with 1000, and you’re getting there.

Being of Turkish descent, I have always been fascinated by Arabesk music, which happens to be my first musical influence with my young father being a massive Orhan Gencebay fan. His psychedelic songs were playing in our house and car all the time, and as a kid I never questioned why songs had titles like „This World Shall Go Down“ or „Game of my Destiny“. And consider that almost all Turkish music stars were movie stars, too (yes, Baris Manco as well)- while my peers were watching Beverly Hills 90210, I was working myself through all facets of suffering, love, betrayal, and stories of moral corruption and whoredom in Babylon. I have very fond memories of an impressive scene in my childhood, in which Orhan Gencebay stands in front of the Istanbul skyline, reaches his hands out to the sky and shouts out his desperate condemnation of the big city: “Babylon, you whoooore!!!!”

I can’t say that it was ever boring. Even my first concert was Arabesk, when Turkish superstar Ibrahim Tatlises gave a concert in front of the Cologne Cathedral, which was the first event in Germany where the Turkish ‘guest-workers’ could be seen gathered publicly outside of a factory. I was 6 and watched the spectacle sitting on the shoulders of my father.

Then rock’n’roll bombed in and Elvis took over. My teenage and adolescent fascination for Arabesk was now of a negative, even ashamed nature, reflecting the traditional elitist rejection of this genre by the educated and wealthy classes in Turkey. But fear not- a rule in Arabesk is, that you have to live for a few years and suffer through heartbreak, betrayal, and failure, before you can truly appreciate this music. This advise was given to me with paternal gentleness whenever I rolled my eyes at another horrible human fate immortalized on audio, and like almost all advises from my father and his handsome mustachioed friends, it was a true one.

Truth be told, not only western music with its post-modern attitude ruined me for this music for many years, but also a particular musician of the genre, or to be specific, his fanatics: Müslüm Gürses and his fans are a unique and demanding phenomenon, not just in Turkey, but on the entire planet.

The first time that I heard Müslüm Gürses was in the Summer of 1989 at holidays in Turkey. I was 9 and watching Turkish music programmes in my grandfather’s house, when ‘Baba’ (‘Father’) graced the screen- I found him to be tragically funny looking with his tired eyes that were constantly fogged by the smoke of his cigarette, his pitch-black curly hair and completely unglamourous features and attitude. Yet, I couldn’t stop listening to his performance out of which I distilled a single line „I died when I was born“, a philosophy that keeps fascinating me to this day.

Through the typically blurred filter of childhood-memories, I remember that it was also the summer of the razor blades. Newspapers reported on the big controversy of some Gürses concerts being advertised with the slogan “Buy two tickets, get one Gilette for free”. Of course, the razor blades could also be used for shaving mustaches, but the promotions addressed a masochistic cleansing ritual practisized by Gürses’ fans: they would stand in front of the stage, scream, suffer, and cut themselves open with razors while listening to Baba’s songs of pain and suffering.

And how did Müslüm Gürses react to all of that? So friendly and gentle, that it was bizarre in contrast to the red slashing going on. Dressed in a white suit with a red rose in its buttonhole, he would see the blood splatter in front of the stage, and address it very politely: “Please don’t do this, brother. Life is too beautiful.“ „Müslüm baba, you are GOD!“ „Tövbe, don’t say that brother, it is blasphemy“ and so on. Maybe it was part of the escalation of the original pain- Gürses treated his fans with a kindness and forgiveness that many of them had never experienced and simply couldn’t handle. One of them was so overwhelmed that he stabbed Müslüm Gürses on stage– because he loved him so much. Gürses forgave him the moment he seriously injured- a Jesus-like Baba who is taking it all.

His stereotypical fans came from the bottom of society- young boys with violent fathers, robbed of their education and chances, and being made to work in fields or in auto garages as children. At this point, smoking, drinking, and sometimes also sniffing glue become indispensable accessories in the Müslüm Gürses universe. Here are ‘Deplorables’ which are not offended by the label, but very aware of their misery and fetishizing on their suffering and hope for love, since they never had anything else in life. It helped that Müslüm was one of them- being born into a farmer family in a poor part of Turkey, Gürses started singing while working in cotton fields. To prevent him from attending a song-contest, his sadistic father Mehmet Akbaş shaved his son’s full hair. Mehmet Akbaş was also the person who brutally killed the mother of Müslüm Gürses in front of him and his brother Ahmet (who himself was shot by fellow soldiers in 1982 for deserting the military). Why their 2 year-old sister Ezo died remains unclear to this day. Also, after a serious car accident In 1979, Müslüm Gürses was declared dead and delivered to a morgue, from where he managed to free himself. His comment on the events, “I have survived my own death”, sounds like one of his incomparably dramatic song- and album titles.

Before labeling these artists and their fans as insane, one should consider the real life tragedies behind it all. This is something else than growing up in cushy first-world existences and putting on Joy Division to channel the pain of an heartache or the modern feeling of isolation. This here is a music born out of perpetual humiliation, blood, and irreversibly bad fate, with millions of young turkish men adopting the ever-forgiving and cathartic Müslüm Gürses as their father on their crossroads of becoming a man.

Quiz question: if an artist like Müslüm Gürses was to cover David Bowie, which song would he pick? Of course it would be ‘I Am Deranged‘ from David Bowie’s Outside (1995) album, the disturbing opening and closing song of David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997). On the probably most bizarre cover album of all times, Gürses gives surprisingly tastefully selected foreign songs his Arabesk treatment, with new, turkish titles and lyrics. Bowie’s ‘I’m Deranged‘ turns into “I Turned Into Winter”, Björk’s ‘Bachelorette‘ into “Love Loves Coincidences”. Other artists that Gürses covers in Aşk Tesadüfleri Sever (2006) are Garbage and Leonard Cohen. Worth pointing out here is Dylan’s ‘Mr. Tambourine Man‘, which is now called “Life Is Awful” in Gürses’ version- it is all a matter of perspective.

by Saliha Enzenauer

(Read here: Sniffin’ Glue – Müslüm Gürses Album Titles Translated)

(Read here: “Listening to him is like shoveling earth on myself.” Müslüm Gürses Fans on Youtube)