My Arsen

Yesterday I walked trough Palermo and out of habit checked bookshops and music by local artists - there was nothing I couldn't live without and unfortunately Internet had made music so easily available that nowadays I don't even have that old urge to buy and collect as before. I noticed few releases by old school Italian singers like Luigi Tenco and Fabrizio De André and said to myself "maybe I should buy this and send as a surprise gift to Arsen Dedić" - looking from outside, I might be adult, middle-aged man but inside I still have soft spot for my idols and this summer while on vacation I read that old man had a serious health problems, so I though this might perhaps cheer his hospital days. It was just one of the current news, replaced quickly with other news and this irritated me because everything else seemed trivial and superficial compared with the fact that giant of Croatian music is seriously ill in a hospital. It worried me but somehow deep inside I was sure he would recover and probably write tons of new songs. Since I very rarely check Internet while I'm sailing, the sad news about his passing caught me completely by surprise and I fell apart in the middle of some pizzeria in Napoli, cried my eyes out alone at the table - surely the scene was like something out of his songs - it turned out he actually died several days ago and I was completely unaware of it because I was at sea. 

Every time I make some mental list of who's who in Croatian music, my own personal list always starts with Arsen and than I add few more important people as a cornerstones, as the big five, the ones who matter, the ones who broke the ice and inspired generations that followed. Now suddenly I realised something that earlier never occurred to me, that all this time in my head Arsen was actually nr.one - not just chronologically but in a sense of importance, he precedes everybody else and often the rest of important names actually started with songs written by him. 

Što me čini sretnom - Josipa Lisac 1969 (composer Arsen Dedić)

Ne plači - Bisera Veletanlić 1971 (composer Arsen Dedić)

Proljeće bez Tebe - Ksenija Erker 1974 (composer Arsen Dedić)

This is just from the top of my head because I love these particular singers and this is how they started - their first hits were songs by Arsen Dedić - but you can find his name on countless hit records by other artists, not to mention his music for movies, TV, theatre, children, festivals, even advertisements ("Ledolina"!) he did it all and he did it with a style. No matter who sings it, you can recognise Arsen's lyrics. I remember once during a car ride that one of his old songs came on the radio and we all agreed that not only it was a beautiful poetry but you can clearly tell its written by him, it has that recognisable something , some poetic twist that after 50 years we all started taking for granted, because we got used that Arsen stands above any competition.

There were tons of awards, some even international - “Jacques Brel” award and "Premio Tenco" that actually officially placed Arsen in the league with nine most influential pop songwriters like Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Neil Young or Bulat Okudžava - but for us who followed him from year to year, it was all about poetry. Oh, poetry. Nobody could ever match Arsen when inspired (mind you, even when obviously crafting lyrics for others, he was ever professional) and no matter who sings it, it always gets me right in the heart. For us, Croatians and everybody born in these parts, he was our own Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, Gilbert Becaud, Sergio Endrigo and Gino Paoli - he could be lighthearted and playful, but most of the time his most recognisable trademark was some strange, haunting melancholy. Because he was so successful and prolific as a pop music composer, it took forever for literary circles to seriously accept him as a poet, although there were twenty-something poetry collections published under his name, starting with 1971. "Brod u boci" that sold unbelievable 60 000 items (poetry collection!) and I guess no matter the music or even the hits, the voice (or lack of - just like Dylan, he was notoriously declamatory, talk-singing artist), at the end of the day when dust settles it will be his poetry that people will remember, so yes, Arsen was a great poet. Who also happened to compose music for his lyrics. 

Appreciation of his art did not come to me immediately - like countless other kids, I was influenced by my parents who smirked and criticised at music that was not instantly entertaining and trough my childhood I would listen about that boring Arsen, on the other hand nobody complained when that exactly same material was sung by his wife who was still probably the best interpreter of his music (kind of Dylan/Baez where people who couldn't stomach Dylan actually loved his music as sung by Baez). It didn't take me long to discover that most of the things my parents detested actually appealed to me very much - classical music, cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, Ingmar Bergman, Arsen Dedić (perhaps not in that order). First it was his poetry, than slowly trough his huge discography I started to actually seriously enjoy his music and even though detractors often complained about his singing technique and "reciting" it didn't bother me at all, I grew up on me and in fact today I love Arsens originals far more than anybody else singing his music. I sing along with him just fine.

I spoke to the man briefly once during my journalistic days - I was writing article about veteran musicians who often outlive their popularity and live their old days frustrated as nobody invites them to perform anymore, so I did kind of survey what some of singers think about the subject. Of all of them, Arsen impressed me to this day, as he didn't just answer whatever but carefully listened my question and than asked me to call him back in 30 minutes and he will have to think what kind of answer he will give me - and he came up with eloquent, erudite and intelligent opinion that it doesn't matter what kind of profession you are in, stonemason or baker or musician, the years of experience should in theory just make you better so age basically has nothing to do with it. Ah yes, I have also visited his bedroom - by mistake naturally - you see, both Arsen and Gabi were gracious people willing to help young, unknown musicians and after one interview with her (where we hit it off perfectly as she is a real sweetheart) Gabi Novak asked me could I please write something about certain young pianist lady who was soon to have her very first concert in Zagreb, of course I did because when Gabi asks you would do anything for her - after our short conversation and some wine that got in my head, I was escorted to the entrance and somehow by mistake blundered into what turned out the be bedroom - we both giggled, it was a sweet moment. I have actually seen the bed where Arsen slept!

Besides occasional concert, music has long stopped being communal experience for me - I listen to the music alone, I soak everything in, listen carefully, analyse and it is never just a noise in the background, so naturally since Arsen music is mostly based on poetry (although he also has quite large repertoire of instrumentals) he is my perfect choice to listen when I'm alone with myself. This I believe is the main problem with people who never had patience or simply habit to approach music seriously as a medium that speaks to them but take it as non-committal entertainment - if for you music is simply noise in the background, than you probably don't even have predisposition to listen to the lyrics in the first place. So with time I started to unconsciously divide my acquaintances into people who read and love poetry (therefore probably Arsen) and those who don't. For every person who would tell me that he can't stomach Arsen because he is not for the ordinary man on the street I would point that this is not true because absolutely everybody is familiar with at least a line or two from his music, be it children's song that everybody joyously sings in the kindergarten, local melody from some festival that is so ancient that people think its a folk song or some other artist's hit that everybody knows and it was actually written by Arsen. His poetry - usually instantly recognisable because it has that elegant twist that only Arsen comes up with - deals with so many different faces of human life (loneliness, sadness, melancholy, yearning, disappointments, heartbreak, hunger that is literary and metaphorical) that I honestly don't understand how is it possible that person can hear/read his song without being stopped in the track. Naturally, not everything touches me with the same force - some experiences are his own, others more universal where everybody can recognise himself. It is a huge body of work that spreads trough decades so I roughly divide it into three stages - young Arsen in the 1960s when he was still a skinny troubadour singing love songs (curiously it was also his most commercial period, full of hits like "Okus soli", "Moderato Cantabille", "Sve što znaš o meni", "Djevojka za jedan dan" and "Sve bilo je muzika", middle period that covers a list of long-play albums full of mind-boggling poetry set into music and autumn years where each occasional and rare album was a little masterpiece of detailed attention and reflection of the world around him, a shift towards materialism that he found disgusting and annoying (I believe this is why he is perceived as intimidating where in fact I would guess he was simply impatient with primitive, superficial people around him). As a true Artist and a Giant, he must felt frustrated with small minded provincialism that clashed with his worldview of a international poet - after all he was a man who would get greetings & postcards from Jacques Brel who was leaving the hotels day before Arsen would arrive and here he is being tortured with unimaginative journalists asking him for 365th time who was real inspiration behind his love song. Since I had listened - and still do - everything he ever recorded, I have selected that first chapter (now almost forgotten) as my favorite so I am fairly stuck with those early EP recordings from 1960s and love them dearly but every now and than I re-visit the rest of his discography and must say that I will love it as love as I live. 

I don't care for people who don't like Arsen or small characters who love good gossip about celebrity they never met but they know everything - I cherish fun stories, I cherish my own impressions and most of all, I am seriously inspired with his poetry and music that I constantly find brilliant and often listen to the lyrics attentively because that particular turn of a phrase perfectly reflect my own opinions. Once deep down bellow in South Africa I was chilling out on a top of the ship long after midnight (after a particularly exhausting working day) and there came some machinist who during conversation quoted some Arsen's lyrics - I loved it - just loved that moment where unknown man comes to me in completely opposite part of the world and knows Arsen enough to actually quote his lyrics, for me that was the beauty of life. And this morning, naturally, a new colleague (a nice guy from Serbia who I am just getting to know) quoted some more Arsen, in fact he quoted exactly the same song I was listening while dressing up. 

I am deeply saddened that my beloved Arsen is not amongst us anymore but I am also 100% sure that his huge body of work will outlive all of us and time will come when his poetry will be taught in the schools. Of all Croatian artists that I know, he is probably the only one I always loved without any reservations and always found beauty in each and every of his albums. I can't even list favourite songs because there are simply just so many of them colouring different chapters of my life. He is gone now but I will listen his music forever, just like I always did.