Immortal song: Is it possible?
It was probably my father who bought the cassette in front of me, or it was my father’s tech-savvy friend Hakan[1]. One of my favorite activities as a kid was listening to music while playing with Lego. While I was turning on the cassette player, unaware of the music I was going to listen to, I thought I would listen to something while playing with lego as I always do. As a child who enjoys drawing glasses and implanting hair, beard and mustache on the faces of the newspaper puzzle inserts, I cannot express my happiness when I see the mustaches drawn on the faces of the men (Mazhar-Fuat-Ozkan known as MFO)[2] standing side by side on the album cover in front of me. It sounded very funny, it didn’t look like the album covers I know.
The first song is interesting. It tells of a man named Ali Desidero. A song decorated with dozens of words (mostly I don’t know. I laugh in some parts, the people in the house are laughing at me. Rationalists, feminists are in the air. The people in the house work overtime, they try to explain the meanings of the words I ask to the new primary school child in a language they can understand.
A few songs did not attract my attention at first, after 10 minutes, I was locked in front of the tape again. “Sude” is next. The song has no language! My mother speaks English and my father speaks French, but the language of the song was not either. What do you mean, now making a song out of fake language?
The album, the songs, the cover were fascinatingly beautiful. It was listened to by all family members over and over again, without ever getting bored. The album “Geldiler” was at the top 10 list of our home for such a long time that even my brother, who was only 3 months old when the album was released, grew up with the album and got its share from the magic of the album.
Today is June 22, 2020. The album “Geldiler” is 30 years old! Now my daughter listens to the same songs. Of course, not by wrapping it from tape, but by bluetooth speaker over Spotify. She listens to the words of “Ali Desidero” with curiosity. She likens the rhythm of the song “Sude” to the sounds made by the train, he likes the places where Özkan Uğur devotes himself to the song. Ali Desidero has been streamed over three and a half million times on Spotify (which is a good number for a 30 years old Turkish song). Although the winds of change in the country follow the songwriter of the song, it does not change the beauty of the album. I think that a two-year-old boy, listening to the works created by Mazhar Fuat Özkan with the support of Fahir Atakoğlu and Ayhan Sicimoğlu, takes the songs beyond time.
So, what is the difference that makes a song or an album immortal, causing it to be described as timeless? Sound engineers, psychologists, and composers say there may be special beats that grab the human attention, and some tones are hard to forget. Is the spell created with a complex formula? Or do these melodies really have a “devil’s feather”? When we search music forums and articles on music philosophy a little, we see that this topic has been discussed for a long time. According to songwriters, musicians, and composers, the devil’s feather is hidden in the catchiness of the song and the emotions it touches.
Musicologist Dr. Alison Pawley and psychologist Dr. Daniel Mullensiefen puts forward 4 conditions for a song to be memorable.
1- Longer and more detailed musical expressions that the vocalist sings in one breath: The longer and different melodies a vocal use in a breath, the more likely the listener will share in the music.
2- More and different pitches in the chorus section: The combination of three different acts and longer words increases the memorability.
3- Male vocals. At this point, an evolutionary situation emerges: Humanity, accustomed to following men’s war cries, is perhaps more inclined to intuitively listen to the male voice.
4- High male vocal and noticeable effort: Just like Freddie Mercury’s vocalism, the high energy pushes the listener to accompany the song.
Let’s say we found the formula for writing a catch song. We can try to explain the memorability of many of MFO’s songs with this formula. Don’t forget, our concern is with songs that go beyond time. In other words, in songs that evoke many emotions in the listener when they start playing, without being affected by time and place. Researchers say that for a song to achieve this, it must touch the listener’s emotions, memories, and desires. It is now a scientific fact that music stimulates emotions. A 1991 study found that heavy metal music, contrary to what was thought, had a stress-reducing effect on listeners[3]. This effect is interpreted as a healthy release or regulation of anger emotion. In another study conducted in 2014, it is seen that people with psychiatric disorders or substance addicts use music as a therapeutic drug that is good for them[4].
Psychoanalyst Michael Brog brings the business to the subconscious. He thinks that albums, in which lyrics and songs that are in harmony with each other are collected on top of a strong music, increase the communication (projective identification) between the spirituality of the artist and the listener. Brog likens this mixture to a story in its raw state, when the album cover, inner packaging and the sequence of the songs are added to this communication. What makes this raw story mature is the listener’s associations and psychological history, as in the psychoanalytic sessions. In short, it is a great story that begins with the subconscious of the musician and continues with the composition, lyrics, album cover, packaging and associations of the listener.
The album “Geldiler” accompanied the childhood and adolescent dances of the generation born in the 80s. The album is a good time for me to come together and share as a family, the puzzles in the Sunday attachments, the pictures made with the father, the legos played with the sibling. The album takes my generation, perhaps to the happy and peaceful days of childhood, to the limitlessness at the beginning of the change in the 90’s. May my associations remain with me. Let’s see what will the album mean for those born in 2018? In the words of the psychoanalyst Brog, let’s end the article “turn on your favorite album at home, turn off the lights, relax in a comfortable chair, put yourself a glass of wine (even light a Freudian cigar) and give an analyst’s free-floating attention to the words and music emanating from the speaker. You may be surprised by what you find”.
[1] This article is the translation of the article named “30 sene önce Geldiler” by the author published in medium on 30 May 2020.
[2] MFÖ is one of the main attractions in Turkish music. The name is actually the first letters of the names of the main members, Mazhar Alanson (vocals), Fuat Güner (guitar), and Ozkan Ugur (bass). MFÖ takes its power from the combination of three creative minds. Aside from being good musicians, all three were also great songwriters and, above it, all three could sing as well. Utilizing the combined vocal harmonies, MFÖ was distinctive, but on the other hand, with easily memorized and still deeply touching lyrics, they were the ultimate crowd favorites. https://www.allmusic.com/artist/mf%C3-mn0002314746
[3] Arnett, J. (1991). Heavy metal music and reckless behavior among adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20(6), 573–592.
[4] Gebhardt, S., Kunkel, M. & Von Georgi, R. (2014). Emotion Modulation in Psychiatric Patients Through Music. Music perception: An interdisciplinary Journal. 31 (5), pp. 485–493.
