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Regarding the Greek songs that talk about addictive "substances", legal and illegal, Panagiotis Kounadis (2008: 13) mentions the following:
"We are talking about an archive that comprises more than two thousand songs that were written and sung for over a hundred years in the regions where Greeks moved around, move around and live.
Most of these songs were recorded in Greek discography in the beginning of the 20th century, in places such as Smyrna (Izmir), Constantinople (Istanbul), America (New York, Chicago) and finally Greece, especially from 1924 onwards, when mass recordings started being made here too.
For many years it was considered that songs about banned substances such as hashish, heroin and cocaine (after the relevant laws of 1932 and 1936) were only the rebetika songs that dominated the years of the interwar period; the majority still believes that.
However, today, after having discovered and studied almost the entirety of Greek discography of the era of 'free creation', that is, before the enforcement of the precautionary censorship of the 4th of August Regime, it turns out that a significant number of creators and performers from the field of the operetta, the revue and the elafro (light) song participated in the creation and presentation of songs with such themes. One observation that is particularly important is that most of these songs praise these (prohibited or not) substances, something that does not always occur in rebetiko music.
From the research that has been conducted so far on the themes of popular songs of other countries all around the world, we can understand that the Greek songs about substances, especially the forbidden ones, constitute the richest urban folklore in the world."
Regarding the Greek songs that talk about addictive "substances", legal and illegal, Panagiotis Kounadis (2008: 13) mentions the following:
"We are talking about an archive that comprises more than two thousand songs that were written and sung for over a hundred years in the regions where Greeks moved around, move around and live.
Most of these songs were recorded in Greek discography in the beginning of the 20th century, in places such as Smyrna (Izmir), Constantinople (Istanbul), America (New York, Chicago) and finally Greece, especially from 1924 onwards, when mass recordings started being made here too.
For many years it was considered that songs about banned substances such as hashish, heroin and cocaine (after the relevant laws of 1932 and 1936) were only the rebetika songs that dominated the years of the interwar period; the majority still believes that.
However, today, after having discovered and studied almost the entirety of Greek discography of the era of 'free creation', that is, before the enforcement of the precautionary censorship of the 4th of August Regime, it turns out that a significant number of creators and performers from the field of the operetta, the revue and the elafro (light) song participated in the creation and presentation of songs with such themes. One observation that is particularly important is that most of these songs praise these (prohibited or not) substances, something that does not always occur in rebetiko music.
From the research that has been conducted so far on the themes of popular songs of other countries all around the world, we can understand that the Greek songs about substances, especially the forbidden ones, constitute the richest urban folklore in the world."
© 2019 KOUNADIS ARCHIVE
