The Musicality of Detective Grigoris: Exploring a Song’s Heritage and Literary Life
How a Cretan folk song’s eternal revolt continues in my detective fiction
You may be surprised to learn that a veritable soundtrack accompanies my Detective Grigoris novel. While it may be impossible to get all the copyright permissions for any future film adaptation, it was a wonderful working education, to gain creative inspiration from so many songs during a three-year writing process. And, as today’s essay shows, this doesn’t just imply ‘background music,’ but rather pieces integral to plot, location and structure.
A few of the songs receive direct mentions in the novel, while others co-exist with the text on a subliminal level. The featured songs were carefully selected for historical, character-related and plot reasons, and did not even constitute the music I listened to while writing. The latter is interesting but would require a separate article.
While most songs encountered in Detective Grigoris will be known to ‘Western’ readers, a few won’t. So, in today’s continuation of the series on the novel, I’ll cover one example: a Greek folk song of perhaps Byzantine origins, that plays a comically surreal role in the novel’s third chapter.
The song both comments on local culture and national history, and adapts a realistic, if amusing, counterpoint to the larger narrative, both for the setting and the characters. Philosophically, this song-choice in plot-context inclines to the same principle of life’s constant ups-and-downs encountered in Voltaire’s Zadig (last month’s article). However, my familiarity with the song and inclination to use it predated by many years my 2022 discovery of Voltaire’s novella.
To aid your future reading experience, and provide some Greek ethnomusicological notes, today’s article will cover the song’s history, most famous performer, and its lyrics, before closing with a YouTube recording. This will be the only time I provide such insight into musical allusions in the novel, so if this subject interests you, please enjoy it. If you’re not Greek, the below will help you to better enjoy the relevant part of the Detective Grigoris novel.
The Song and Its History: Popular Revolt (perhaps of Byzantine Origin)
Detective Grigoris (Chapter 3) is set in Crete: here, a classic local song is spontaneously sung by one character at an unexpected place and point in the plot. This episode enhances the tragicomic absurdity of the situation, and won’t be lost on Greek readers. But it may be lost on everyone else, even though the novel cites the relevant lyrics in English translation. So here’s some context.
The actual song comes from the Cretan rizitika (Ριζίτικα) tradition, from the Greek word rizes, meaning ‘roots.’ Such anonymous and often, centuries-old Cretan songs are both ‘roots’ songs in the figurative sense, and in the literal sense mostly deriving from the historically independence-minded villagers of the mountains that crisscross the island’s central spine. Rizitika songs are generally in major scales and, being old and sometimes rewritten, tend to be named or remembered for their opening lyric.
Such is so with our song, ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria’ (Πότε Θα Κάνει Ξαστεριά), ‘When Will the Skies Be Clear and Starlit,’ in the longer translation. While scholars yet debate whether it derives from Ottoman, Venetian or even Byzantine times, ‘Xasteria’ (for short) is both very old and very fluid, having been reused with different lyrics, depending on the context, up until the present.
Its simple melody, driven by the Cretan lyra (folk violin) somehow conveys both a mournful and beautiful ethos, whereas the lyrics are all about righting perceived collective injustices and getting revenge on powerful oppressors.
Its lyrics, in the most commonly-encountered form of its 25 known versions, are a sort of lament and battle-cry. The singer, first alone and later joined by a chorus (as is common in this genre) asks when will the skies clear and the season of February arrive (that is, the time when the Cretan mountain snows melt), to allow the war-party to freely go down to the Omalos Plateau and do battle with the Mousouros clan.
The Mousouroi were indeed among the most ancient aristocratic families of Crete, is attested in Byzantine documents, and was involved in the usual inter-familial sheep-stealing feuds of rural Cretan life, events over which vendettas could arise.
‘Xasteria’ would be interesting enough as a cultural relic even if that was all, but there’s much more to its story. The song would actually be projected deeply into the Greek national consciousness in the following centuries. If you read Greek, check out the scholarly book by Georgios Andreiomenos devoted to the song, and published by Sideris Editions in Athens (Γιώργος Ανδρειωμένος, Πότε θα κάνει Ξαστεριά»: Από τις ρίζες των Λευκών Ορέων στην πανελλήνια χρήση, Εκδόσεις Ι. Σιδέρης, Αθήνα 2017).
That book explores the song’s history in great detail. Not having it available, I’ve done the next-best-thing, consulting a book review of it by Greek philologist Efgenia Perysinaki. This review notes that ‘Xasteria’ was also adapted for Cretan revolts against the Ottomans in the later 18th century, and after revolutionary events and tragedies on Crete in the 19th century. Most interestingly is how it was reused when Athens took Crete back from the Ottomans.
Perysinaki describes the author’s research question concerning ‘Xasteria’ as:
“…how a song of a purely local character could become a pan-Hellenic song, while simultaneously changing its meaning, depending on the occasion…”
This is a fascinating case study, as the review reveals. The song’s lyrics would, in the 20th century, be adapted for new enemies in the Balkan Wars (against the Bulgarians), and in the Second World War (against both the Nazi German occupiers and Greek ‘traitors’ who collaborated with them).
Later and most importantly, during the 1967-1974 military junta, some of the lyrics were changed again to target the junta and ‘Greek fascists’ following the Polytechnio uprising of 14-17 November, 1973, and Turkey’s July 1974 invasion of Cyprus. (Yes, there’s also a version of ‘Xasteria’ adopted by Greek Cypriots for that struggle, with the Turks as the oppressors). And there are much more recent iterations of the song, used by various sides, though without the same level of national impact, considering the overall stabilization of Greece since 1974.
So, the song is specifically a piece of Cretan cultural heritage, and over time has been generally (though not only) associated with the left in national causes, influencing the national discourse on collective justice. The terrific amount of implied contextual information makes the song’s placement in my novel both fun and meaningful for plot, character development and irony; plus, where it occurs is vital, considering too last month’s discussion of Zadig. But this essay is not to explain, merely to provide illuminating context.
Now, before exploring the lyrics and taking a listen, let’s consider the legendary Cretan singer who brought ‘Xasteria’ back into the national consciousness at precisely the right moment, in a rendition still widely beloved.
The Singer: Nikos Xylouris
So: I forgot to mention that our detective, the young Athenian Grigoris, is a great fan of Greek traditional music, and especially of the late Nikos Xylouris (Νίκος Ξυλούρης, July 7 1936—February 8 1980). Way back in the 1960s, when the young Xylouris was seeking to start his own career, record companies were lukewarm over Cretan folk music’s capacity to sell or be taken seriously, as it is now.
A native of Anogeia, an insular village in the foothills of Mt. Psiloritis near Rethymno, Xylouris came from a musical family. (His two younger brothers are also great musicians). His life was marked by tragic events, from the German destruction of his village during the war to his untimely death from cancer at age 43. For the purity of his voice, his musical skill, gracious nature and his musical prominence during times of socio-political upheaval, Nikos Xylouris is still considered ‘the ‘archangel of Cretan music’ in Greece, as a 2023 article from Folkradio.gr noted.
In describing the charismatic young singer’s rise from rural Crete, the article notes his 1966 first-place lyra performance in San Remo, initial recording successes, and important interactions in Athens. There, Xylouris “…met the poet and director Errikos Thalassinos who decided to introduce him to Giannis Markopoulos and this is how a brilliant collaboration began with the records ‘Chroniko’ and ‘Rizitika.’ In 1971 he started to appear together with Giannis Markopoulos at the music hall ‘Ledra’ and his voice became the symbol of resistance.”
‘Rizitika’ was the album for which Nikos Xylouris recorded the famous version of ‘Xasteria’ below. Dr. Nick Poulakis, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Athens’ Department of Music, described the facts of that album to me.
“Released by Columbia on July 20, 1971,” Dr. Poulakis notes, “it features nine traditional folk songs from Crete (Rizitika) and two traditional dances from the same region. The melodies were arranged and orchestrated by composer Yiannis Markopoulos, and the songs are performed by Nikos Xylouris, with some tracks also featuring a choir. The recording took place at Columbia's studio with sound engineer Giorgos Konstantopoulos.”
While there is an older and (possibly) Byzantine-origin version of ‘Xasteria’ with some different lyrics (see the song’s above-cited Wikipedia reference), none of several experts I surveyed knew of any audio version with the older lyrics online. (Those lyrics speak of swords and spears, which certainly helps the argument for Byzantine origins).
In any case, despite the variety of lyrics noted in the 2017 study, the Xylouris standard version remains the most popular and timeless, retaining the original Cretan references that preserve its spirit of revolution with a more archaic sense of the bygone culture of rural Crete in vaguely pre-modern times. By contrast, the modified versions that have been adapted to specific modern contexts lose their universal appeal and poetic adaptability by identifying with specific events.
Philological Notes: The Lyrics
Here are the lyrics to ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria,’ first in English and then in the original Greek. As said, this is the standard Xylouris arrangement, which is the most enduring version—several hundred years old, if not a thousand. Again, appreciating the song’s lyrical content together with its contrasting musical mood will enhance both your musical experience, and also your contextual appreciation of the novel, when it finally appears.
Note: in both the English and Greek written versions here, the lyrics are presented just once, not in the ‘as-sung’ repeating format, a discrepancy which you might note from the final recording. In the novel, I present the words ‘as-sung,’ in a slightly longer and more accurate format.
‘When will the skies be clear, when will it be February
To take my rifle, and my beautiful bullet-pouch
To go down to Omalos, to the road of the Mousouroi,
To make mothers without sons, women without husbands
And babies, to cry without mothers,
To cry in the night for water and in the morning for milk.’
The Greek lyrics to ‘Xasteria’ are as follows:
Πότε θά κάμει ξαστεριά, πότε θά φλεβαρίσει
νά πάρω τό τουφέκι μου τήν ὄμορφη πατρώνα
νά κατεβῶ στόν Ὁμαλό, στή στράτα τῶν Μουσούρω,
νά κάμω μάνες, δίχως γιους, γυναῖκες δίχως ἄντρες
νά κάμω καί μωρά παιδιά νά κλαῖν δίχως μανᾶδες,
νά κλαῖν' τή νύχτα γιά νερό καί τό πρωί γιά γάλα.
Subtleties to be noted here (and especially considering the lyrics ‘as-sung’) include the dialectic form of the Greek verb kanei (he/she/it does) as kamei (κάμει), This is natural usage but also allows the singer to ‘grip’ the verb with a slightly stronger consonant, so that the repetition of the first line extracts an extra sung syllable, before the listener even hears the descriptor that tells, all at once, the meaning.
For this particular verb takes on copula functions when used with weather conditions, i.e., ‘kanei zesti’ means ‘it is hot.’ This usage of the ‘doing’ verb in place of the actual copula (einai, it is) also somehow lends a sense of becoming the specified weather condition; there is thus a certain unspoken timelessness articulated in the verbal construct.
Further, the word ‘xasteria’ itself means several things simultaneously. As Dr. Poulakis notes, “in Greek, ‘xasteria’ (ξαστεριά) or ‘xesteria’ (ξεστεριά) refers to a clear night sky where you can see the stars.” This implies nighttime, visual perception, a certain mood and natural environment, and imaginations of it becoming a new season: the change from winter to early spring in a Cretan mountain village, with all the emotions bottled up in such a place.
This flood of meanings in one word, at the specific place it is presented in the ‘as-sung’ lyrics, heightens the power of meaning and call-to-arms that follow a repeated rhetorical statement/question musing on ‘when’ a certain season will begin. One characteristic of songs that are cherished for hundreds of years, I think, is the perfection of their lyrical phrasing. ‘Xasteria’ is an excellent example of this.
The sense of becoming-seasons through verbal constructs is repeated in the second line, with my absolutely favorite construct: the verbal form, tha flevarisei (θά φλεβαρίσει), or, ‘to be February.’ While Greek has a few other examples of such verbal constructs from seasons used in everyday life, some more rare ones are found in poetic language, notes Dr. Poulakis.
As a writer, I find the concept of making a verb out of a month irresistible. It’s another wonderful gem in this song to appreciate.
Song Themes and Heritage Meanings
The image of villagers descending from the mountains to a plain controlled by an oppressive aristocracy, and perhaps to revenge a vendetta, has both simple and direct social meaning in rural Cretan folklore, but also invites a broader national participation on the symbolic level for any perceived state of oppression and collective injustice, whether it be the German 1940s occupation or the rule of the Colonels in the early 1970s.
Further, as the reviewer of the 2017 Greek book notes, “…the researcher connects the final verses (to make mothers without sons, women without men, etc.) with the songs of the Underworld and Charon, popular in Crete and the rest of Greece.”
I believe this reference might be particularly valid for the Venetian Renaissance period (1204-1669), when curiosity with ancient Greek literature and mythology was re-emerging on the island. And, a third contextual meaning, perhaps, simply anticipates the imagined return from the metaphorical season of winter, or a ‘long night of the soul,’ to a reckoning-moment, period of action or challenge when the conditions become more promising.
And Finally… The Audio of ‘Xasteria’
Thanks for reading, and I hope it’s been interesting and, even educational.
As promised, here’s the actual well-known 1971 audio version of ‘Pote Tha Kanei Xasteria,’ as sung by the immortal Nikos Xylouris.
Love your dive into the Greek.