Hem Okudum Hemi De Yazdım (I Both Read and Wrote)
Story
The song voices the lament of a young man who has learned to read and write but has not won the one he loves; this theme of complaint is why the song is sometimes also called the “Mehmet Ağıtı” (“Mehmet’s Lament”). According to one academic study, the song was collected from the Alacahöyük area.
About
According to Çorum Municipality’s official publication “Çorumlu Bestekârlar, Güftekârlar ve Müziğe Emek Verenler” (“Çorum’s Composers, Lyricists and Contributors to Music”), the song is classified as a kırık hava and its collector is recorded as Muzaffer Sarısözen. An academic article examining the song, however, notes an inconsistency between the source-singer record in the TRT repertoire and local oral tradition: the repertoire lists only one name (Ali Ciyez), while local tradition also credits another (Ali Bilgin); the sources do not fully agree on this point. The song continues to live on in the TRT repertoire today, performed by artists such as Ümit Tokcan.
Lyrics
The song’s known opening line, which also serves as its title:
Hem okudum hemi de yazdım… (I both read and I wrote…)
(For the song in full, collection records and the TRT repertoire may be consulted.)