"Damn You, Foreign Lands"

A great track selected by Chris King for his amazing 4-CD boxed set, Beyond Rembetika

Damn You Foreign Lands,
Anathema Se Xenitia

'Sung by Glykeria Zoumba with Fotios Halkias and Christos Litos, and accompanied by A. Halkias (clarinet) and "folk orchestra." Recorded in Athens, 1955, and reissued on the "Five Days Married and Other Laments: Song and Dance from Northern Greece, 1928-1958" LP (Angry Mom, 2013) and "Beyond Rembetika: The Music and Dance of the Region of Epirus" 4-CD set (JSP, 2013). Both releases compiled and remastered by Christopher King, Long Gone Sound Productions. Records from King's collection.

"Damn You, Foreign Lands":

My migrant birds, scattered across the world,
Your beautiful youth has gotten old in foreign lands.
Damn you, foreign land, you and all your villages;
Without wife and children, without parents by one's side.
Day and night young maidens are waiting at your villages,
Who've yearned for years to set their eyes upon your manly selves.
Let there be weddings at the villages, let festivals get started,
Let joyful bells ring out in monasteries afar.

The Epirot poet and translator Demetrios Dallas explains the term "xenitia," translated here as "foreign lands":

"Xenitia" is a very difficult term to render. It's practically a cultural term for us, encompassing foreign lands, economic migration, exile, the experience of working life in foreign parts, the loss of family and friends owing to the long distances involved, and the great yearning for home soil. The connection of Epirots to their land is deep and legendary, comparable only to that of Greeks hailing from Mani or parts of Crete. Organized economic migration in Epirus dates at least to the fifteenth century, hence the great number of songs of "xenitia" found in Epirus'.