I’m listening to Istanbul -- İstanbul'u Dinliyorum (Orhan Veli Kanık, 1914 – 1950)

Lyrics: Orhan Veli (Kanık), (the Wikipedia  article I am referring to is uncharacteristically worded very badly. You may have trouble understanding what it is trying to mean). This 20th century Turkish poet was one of the pioneers of a new wave in poetry of his time. Despite his short life, his influence on later generations have simply been immense.
Music: Zulfu Livaneli. Only the master could attempt such an undertaking.

Orhan Veli's poems are quite simple and direct. They form an opposition, a protest to the more embellished, structured, and complicated language of the poetry of his time, and before. Although quite romantic, the objects and themes of his poetry are usually simple and everyday happenings that can happen to anyone. Here is a well known poem of his that exemplifies this fact:

Now that I became drunk,
I remembered you again:
My left hand,
My clumsy hand,
My miserable hand!

Aren't we sometimes amazed, stupefied at how our left (or right) hand is incapable of doing things that the other hand does so skillfully? What makes them so different? What is the reason or purpose? Efficiency? One may propose that it is really quite inefficient to have a hand that does less. Why don't I have two right hands? ... Anyway, such a simple and common thing can easily become Orhan Veli's concern. God knows what he was thinking! I guess, he was drunk and trying to light his cigarette with the matchbox in the "wrong" hand.

Musical Performances and interpretations:

• Zulfu Livaneli: www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQSFvLRPGLs. The original.
• Yavuz Bingol: www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN1gqcu5cTQ. A beautiful performance from this very versatile and skilled artist.
• Leman Sam: www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TOQnPII-rY. Always one of my favorites. A good interpreter of Livaneli songs.

Original lyrics:
=====================================
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı
Önce hafiften bir rüzgar esiyor;
Yavaş yavaş sallanıyor
Yapraklar, ağaçlarda;
Uzaklarda, çok uzaklarda,
Sucuların hiç durmayan çıngırakları
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı.
                 
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı;
Kuşlar geçiyor, derken;
Yükseklerden, sürü sürü, çığlık çığlık.
Ağlar çekiliyor dalyanlarda;
Bir kadının suya değiyor ayakları;
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı.
                 
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı;
Serin serin Kapalıçarşı
Cıvıl cıvıl Mahmutpaşa
Güvercin dolu avlular
Çekiç sesleri geliyor doklardan
Güzelim bahar rüzgarında ter kokuları;
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı.
                 
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı;
Başımda eski alemlerin sarhoşluğu
Loş kayıkhaneleriyle bir yalı;
Dinmiş lodosların uğultusu içinde
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı.
                 
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı;
Bir yosma geçiyor kaldırımdan;
Küfürler, şarkılar, türküler, laf atmalar.
Birşey düşüyor elinden yere;
Bir gül olmalı;
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı.
                 
İstanbul'u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı;
Bir kuş çırpınıyor eteklerinde;
Alnın sıcak mı, değil mi, biliyorum;
Dudakların ıslak mı, değil mi, biliyorum;
Beyaz bir ay doğuyor fıstıkların arkasından
Kalbinin vuruşundan anlıyorum;
İstanbul'u dinliyorum.
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P.S.: Just by coincidence, I came to know, only a few days after posting this translation, the details of a research project that has been going on in my department. It involves frogs, I mean after killing them. By the way, probably, hundreds of thousands of animals are being killed every year in the name of research. Well, don't be so sentimental: it is either them or you! The moment of reckoning is when you are in the hospital. Do you want that cure? Then, some other creatures will have to be killed for testing. No? Then, accept the death, and that is that! Anyway, what they do is simple. They try to quantify things about muscles. Hmm, what better than a frog leg? So, they measure things about their muscles, after killing them humanely, of course. They sedate them, if you want to know. Long story short, it turns out that the right and left legs of a frog do not measure equally. Somehow, the nature has a tendency to make one of the two similar organs of ours slightly superior to the other. Knowing what evolution does, this points at some bizarre optimization of natural selection that eventually decided in this disparity, which must have been more efficient in some ways. I don't have any answers, I simply report a finding: unlike Orhan Veli, frogs are left-handed!