Two other extended songs written in Zatouna to Theodorakis's own verses are 'My Name is Kostas Stergiou' and 'I had Three Lives'.
Both were composed on the occasion of the departure of the composer's wife and children from the village.
I used to wonder, when Theodorakis took the microphone and spat the words of 'Kostas Stergiou' into the microphone, if the police lieutenant had ever heard himself immortalised in song. It is a song of impotent rage in which Stergiou, the officer who ordered Theodorakis's wife and children to be searched, then forbad them to say goodbye to him, becomes symbolic of all that is evil, stupid and brutal in the dictatorship:
"My name is Kostas Stergiou
Descendant of the Visigoths,
The Ostragoths, the Mavrogoths.
I live in caves,
I make clubs,
I drink water out of skulls.
My profession is death
But for the time being I am serving
The big dragon who has sent me to Arcady
I am a cross between Neanderthal Man and wolf
For the time being I ride in a jeep."
Written as a semi-recitative, the song lets no opportunity pass for satirical word-painting.
Like the first songs he composed at Zatouna (Arcadia 1) and the songs of The Sun and Time the horror of his own experience seems to have overwhelmed the composer. Words have become more important than melodic interest and while such songs are striking expressions of a particular moment in the composer's life, they have, in a sense, fulfilled their function. They are effective heard once, twice, even three times. They are not likely to form part of Theodorakis's permanent repertoire.'I had Three Lives', the song which, together with ‘Kostas Stergiou', titled Arcadia X, is in striking contrast. It is the other side of anger, the grief of losing his family combined with the will to endure:
"I was left alone lifeless
without lives
one was taken by the wind
the other by the rain
I was left alone
I and the dragon in a big cave
I hold a spear, I hold a sword
I shall strangle you, I shall dissolve you
I'll wipe you out and blow you out of my life."
The stately, flowing melody of this little-known Theodorakis song, may open no new doors in his development but deserves to be heard more often...
... P.S. Especially because Maria Farantouri has recorded it on her CD: ASMATA.
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