SONGS OF THE GREEK UNDERWORLD

A very interesting song, recorded in 1936 says:
"Την ξενιτειά [1] , την ορφάνια, την πίκρα και
τη λύπη | Όλα μου τα 'δωσε ο θεός, κανένα δε μου
λείπει | Exile, orphan hood, sorrow and distress | God has given me all of them, there’s none I don’t possess.”

Mavi Boncuk |

SONGS OF THE GREEK UNDERWORLD | The Rebetika Tradition BY ELIAS PETROPOULOS
ISBN13: 9780863563683 | Paperback | 165 pages SAQI Books

The tradition of Rebetika [2] song is at the root of all that is most vibrant and subversive in the popular music of modern Greece. It is, originally, the music of the poor, the dispossessed, the refugees and the migrants who came to Greece from Asia Minor before and after the First World War. Written as a broad-brush introduction to Rebetika song, this concise and well-argued book details the everyday life of the Rebetes - where they came from, how they dressed, their weapons and styles of fighting, their sexual preferences, their culture of hashish and of prison life, all of which form the substance of their songs. Petropoulos flies in the face of traditional Greek academia with his painstaking explanation of how this apparently most Greek of musical cultures has thoroughly cosmopolitan roots - Turkish, Albanian, gypsy and Jewish. By tracing the figure of the Rebetis back to the Ottoman empire, he shows how the language and music of Rebetika song was imbued with Turkish influences, and how its ethos was one of free love and a challenge to established social norms. Songs of the Greek Underworld features breakdowns of the rhythms and metric patterns of the different tunes and their associated dances; it also includes the text of songs from the tradition. It is a salutary reminder of the shared cultural roots of Turkey and Greece.

Elias Petropoulos (b. June 26 1928- d. September 3 2003) poet, collector of songs, and ethnographer. The publication of Rebetika Songs earned him a five-month prison sentence under the Greek Junta in 1968. He lived in self-exile in Paris. His other books include The Manual of the Good Thief, Holy Hashish:18 Texts on the Underworld, The Social History of the Condom and The Cemeteries of Greece.

See Realated Mavi Boncuk Article

Elias Petropoulos Obituary from Guardian

[1] Ksenitia means to be far from home for political or economic reasons, here translated as exile.

[2] Hundreds of composers, song writers, singers and organ players contributed to the creation and spread of these songs, not only in but wherever Greeks existed throughout the world. The study of relevant discography proves that in the time period between 1900- 1960 a total of 35.000 songs were recorded, of which 12.000 rebetiko songs or of rebetiko style. Until 1924 recordings were sporadically made by small record companies (of European or Turkish origin). From 1924 till 1931, companies like Odeon, HMV, Columbia, Pathe, Polydor and Homocord Electro record in Athens using portable equipment. In 1931, when Columbia’s factory is established, the whole network begins to operate in Greece.

The rebetiko was persecuted by dominant ideology (e.g. censorship in lyrics and music by the Metaxas administration since 1937) as well as by leaders of leftist political parties. The frequent reference of the drug problem in rebetiko lyrics, which during the interwar period had become a significant issue, was the pretext for its persecution.