Bafra'dan Çıktım Başım Selamet (I Left Bafra Safe and Sound)
Story
The song is sung in the voice of someone who set out from Bafra (a town near the Black Sea coast) safe and sound, only for “doomsday to break loose” on reaching Hacıköy; the narrator commends a Münevver Hanım to God and reminds the enemy who took his life that the enemy, too, will one day follow the same road. Later lines bring the news that Döngelek has died, together with images of captivity — handcuffed wrists and a “lale” around the neck. Türkü Dostları and Repertükül explain Döngelek as “a famous bandit (eşkıya)” and the lale as an iron ring; Repertükül notes that Hacıköy is a place name and classes the song’s theme as “ağıt” (lament). No information on the date of the events or the identity of the people involved was found in the sources.
About
It is a “kırık hava” (metered folk tune) from the İskilip district of Çorum, registered as TRT Repertoire No. 4416. The source singer is Ahmet Tatar; it was collected by the Ankara State Conservatory and set to notation by Altan Demirel (TRT Music Department score sheet, Repertükül). The score sheet gives the collection date as 11 July 1939. According to Repertükül, it uses the hüseyni scale (makamsal dizi) in 4/4 time.
According to its TRT score sheet, Iraftadır Bağlama, another İskilip song, was collected from Ahmet Tatar on the same day. For more on the district, see İskilip.
Lyrics
In short, the words lament a journey that ended in disaster and the death of the bandit Döngelek, and describe a prisoner bound in irons who wishes he had never been born. (The Turkish opening lines are quoted on the Turkish page; line variants differ between sources.)