Sunday 13 May 2012

Persephone's Nightmare/ I wish I was Hercules

A companion piece to "To Poulima tis Panoreas" ("The Pimping of Panorea")?

YouTube video of the Manos Hadjidakis song, and an explanation by guitarist Kostas Grigoreas:

"It's a lament about how Eleusina has ended up. A sacred place in ancient Greece, and famous all over the ancient world for the Eleusinian mysteries and the cult of Demeter and Persephone, a beautiful natural landscape was lost forever in order to become the most polluted and industrialized place in Greece. The poem focuses mainly on the aesthetic pollution and abuse of the once sacred, respectful and untouchable place. It makes many hints too, either direct or indirect, about the downgrading of life quality and public health".

Video 2

Video 3

Here is Markos Vamvakaris' wonderful 1936 recording of the rebetiko (zembekiko) song "I wish I was Hercules"- Herakles in Greek.

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