‘I’m burning up in flames and I’m drowning’: On the poetry of Nikos Gatsos, inside the music of Stavros Xarhakos, inside the film Rebetiko

Abstract

My comments here celebrate a celebration. The original celebration happened on October 14, 2018, and this happening was given a most remarkable name: “The Gatsos I loved: A concert.” The concert was presented by the Harvard University Library, primarily through the efforts of Rhea Lesage. In gratitude for her accomplishment, I dedicate to her my comments here as a celebration of the original celebration. What I write, in the afterglow of a few days later, is about the poetry of Nikos Gatsos (Νίκος Γκάτσος) as we see it embedded in music composed by Stavros Xarhakos (Σταύρος Ξαρχάκος). I focus on one of several songs that these two artists created together for the film Rebetiko (Ρεμπέτικο), which originally appeared in 1983. The song, which was not one of the pieces featured in the luminous concert of October 2018, highlights the word “καίγομαι”—and I translate it for the moment as ‘I’m burning up in flames’. Why do I focus on this song? In the comments that follow, I give seven reasons.