A song that is more than 100 years old: Who is the real composer of the song Misirlou?
Misirlou, the famous song from Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction movie, has an amazing story. This song, which has broken streaming records for a long time since Pulp Fiction was released in 1994, was actually first performed by Dick Dale with a solo guitar accompanied by the Del-Tones orchestra in 1962. Here is the story of the song:
Its fame spread all over the world with Pulp Fiction, and it has always been remembered as Dick Dale's song.
Misirlou has been sung by many musicians from that period until today. King Crimson (1972), California Guitar Trio (1992), Kronos Quartet (2000), Glykeria (2004), Pamela (2005), and Black Eyed Peas (Pump It) are just a few of them...
He was remembered thanks to Dick Dale, but Misirlou did not belong to Dick Dale. It had been performed many times before that.
Xavier Cugat (1944), Manolis Angelopoulos, Martin Denny (1950), Dario Moreno (in Greek and French), Zeki Müren (Wounded Heart- Yaralın Gönül in Turkish 1950), Korla Pandit (1951), Rabbi Rabbi Abulafia (Hebrew), Seymour Rexite, USA The Cardinals (1950s) are a few of them...
But the roots of the song Misirlou were even further back.
"Misirlou" is a folk song from the Eastern Mediterranean region. The original author of the song is not known, but Arabic, Greek, and Jewish musicians were playing it by the 1920s. The earliest known recording of the song is a 1927 Greek rebetiko/tsifteteli composition. There are also Arabic belly dancing, Albanian, Armenian, Serbian, Persian, Indian and Turkish versions of the song. This song was popular from the 1920s onwards in the Arab American, Armenian American and Greek American communities who settled in the United States.
The same song was performed and recorded by Michalis Patrinos in 1930 and by Tetos Demetriades in 1928.
This is where the interestingness of the subject begins.
These recordings, made between 1930 and 1928, were in the character of rebetiko, the music of immigrants who mostly went to Greece from Izmir (Smyrna), the beautiful city of Turkey, during the population exchange period.
The name of the song, Misirlou, came from the Turkish word 'Misirli'.
There is also a Jewish musical mode in the song. So where does this musical mode come from? The song, composed for an Arab girl from Izmir, belongs to Mısırlı İbrahim Efendi, the last great oud player of the Ottoman period. The composer, who was born in Aleppo in 1872 (or 1879 according to some) and whose real name is Avram Levi, is an Arab Jew of Syrian origin. He was called 'Egyptian' (Mısırlı in Turkish) because he also lived in Cairo.
The song, which quickly became popular in Izmir (Smyrna), began to be sung both in Turkish and Greek. Thus, the rebetiko character that the Egyptians acquired in Izmir was carried to the West with Michalis Patrinos, who immigrated to the USA in 1908.
Isn't it surprising?
A song born in Izmir (Smyrna) more than 100 years ago has reached all parts of the world in 100 years...