Interpretation of “The red river” by Eleonora Zouganeli
I have long now enjoyed listening to singer Eleonora Zouganeli, though I had not discovered a song of hers that would seamlessly fit these philosophical interpretations I do. That was until I listened again to The red river (Το κόκκινο ποτάμι). This is a song I have been aware of for years though never considered in depth. Here is the official release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ev_sQGJXuyI. I prefer this version instead: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03hcrVsD07A.
Below are the original lyrics, my faithful translation of them into English, and further commentary.
Το κόκκινο ποτάμι
Ερμηνεία: Ελεωνόρα Ζουγανέλη
Στίχοι: Κώστας Μπαλαχούτης
Μουσική: Χρήστος Παπαδόπουλος
Πριν σε βρω σ'έχασα
Μια στιγμή δεν ξέχασα
Το ποτάμι μάτωσε
Η αγάπη δάκρυσε
Η ζωή μας όλη ένας ποταμός
Αλλιώτικος Θεός που μας χωρίζει
Μία όχθη εδώ στην άλλη το θεριό
Σαν δάκρυ στο καιρό που με ορίζει
Η φωνή μου όλη έγινε κραυγή
Το αίμα στην πληγή στο νου αφρίζει
Μία όχθη εδώ στην άλλη το θεριό
Σαν δάκρυ στο καιρό που με ορίζει
Μη μου λες γιατί
Γίνε ουρανός και γη
Μες τη σκοτεινιά
Φώτισε μου τα κελιά
Πριν σε βρω σε έχασα
Μια στιγμή δεν ξέχασα
Το ποτάμι μάτωσε
Η αγάπη δάκρυσε
Σαν το ναυαγό αφού δεν είσαι εδώ
Που να'βρω ουρανό και που πατρίδα
Μέσα στη βροχή σαν το τρελό σκαρί
Που σκίζει το νερό χωρίς ελπίδα
Νιώσε τη στιγμή πριν έρθει η αυγή
Με μίσος και οργή σαν καταιγίδα
Σαν το ναυαγό αφού δεν είσαι εδώ
Που να'βρω ουρανό και που πατρίδα
The red river
Singer: Eleonora Zouganeli
Lyrics: Kostas Balachoutis
Music: Christos Papadopoulos
Before I found you I lost you
A single moment I did not forget
The river bled
love cried
Our entire life a river
Different god who divides us
A side here the beast on the other
like tear in the era that defines us ["era" could also be "weather"]
My entire voice has become a shout
The blood in the wound froths at the mind
A side here the beast on the other
like tear in the era that defines us
Do not tell me why
Become sky and earth
In the darkness
Lighten my rooms
Before I found you I lost you
A single moment I did not forget
The river bled
love cried
Like shipwrecked as you are not here
Where to find sky and where homeland
In the rain like the crazy boat
That cuts through water without hope
Feel the moment before dawn arrives
With hatred and rage like storm
Like shipwrecked as you are not here
Where to find sky and where homeland
The lyrics of The red river are fairly cryptic. I suspect it is due to the author’s profound realisation, which only occurs to those who pay close attention to their world: you can fall in love with someone who is unreachable. You lost them before you had even met them, in the sense that there was never a chance for you two to make anything out of your brief encounter.
The unreachable person is the one you meet on the street, on the other side of the road, with whom you somehow establish eye contact despite the boisterous crowd around you and the rapid pace at which you are both walking in while moving in opposite directions. You do not know their name, what language they speak, where they came from and where they are going. Nothing! All you have is eye contact so intense and so unlikely that it electrifies you. Such is the impression that you do not forget this person. You call them “Eyes” for short.
Eyes may be someone you would never like to spend time with. People eventually lose interest if the vibes are not in tune, no matter how powerful the initial force that brought them together. Though you choose to believe that Eyes is the one, the perfect match.
The river here reminds us of the momentary encounter that cannot persist. Each moment moves downstream as others take its place. You wish you had more time to realise what had just transpired. You would have done anything to change the course of things. You would turn around, stop the traffic, push the crowd aside, call the attention of Eyes, and express yourself in earnest: “I did not know I was searching for you my whole life”. Yet those thoughts occur too late. You realise that the currents have already pulled you away. You kept marching onwards and so did Eyes.
Bleeding comes from the wound left behind by this encounter. At first, it pains to know that Eyes was made manifest as a fleeting figure and not a companion. It is initially hard to accept that you too had the same quality: a nameless body moving along a nameless field of bodies. Your ego reduces to nothing as you come to terms with the fact that you are a droplet in the river.
Even if you think you matter greatly right now, you as a fully fledged person eventually becomes irrelevant. Hair recedes and turns grey. Wrinkles appear and you no longer shine. Your beauty for which you could have been proud turns into that which you may wish to conceal. Physical prowess and intellectual capacity eventually diminish, no matter how intensely you try to cling on to them. All goes until you are no more. The deeds for which you are known may persist in some form, though long-term your name stops pointing to a relatable person with feelings and all but to a symbol of authorship, a mere identifier for a corpus of work.
The mindful person will witness the bleeding of their ego fairly early in life. The rest will also experience it in some form later in life once they understand how they no longer are players in the game.
However, the river does not only describe the world that keeps changing. It also captures that which remains constant. The river is at once a symbol of change and non-change, constancy and non-constancy. The flowing waters tell us about continuous flow. Yet flux as such points to the common in the multitude of the flowing waters. Change as change is identity.
It is for this reason that Eyes remains Eyes in the poetic first person’s heart despite all these years that have gone by. Eyes, too, is a symbol: the authentic, the eternal in the momentary, that which is common in the multitude of all attractions.
This was the interpretation for today. Now a brief note that is tangential to the aforementioned.
A few months ago I met a fellow Greek person (Greek-Cypriot to be precise) who was excited to learn that I am a philosopher. A “Greek philosopher” who is actually alive already makes for inexhaustible meme-worthy material. I keep shaving though, which kind of ruins it for them, but they will have to manage.
This person was keen to ask me all sorts of questions. Though before we started our discussion, we had this brief exchange, which is relevant to the present song as well as practically every other piece I have interpreted:
- I am a philosopher.
- Wow! We [the Greeks] do not have philosophers anymore!
- And what do you think the [Greek] songmakers are?
I then went on to explain that once you listen attentively to a song, you realise that it opens up a whole world of possibilities, each of which is another world. Even the Eurovision style songs that you may underestimate will make you think much more than what the lyrics state. This is because one word is worth a thousand images (and an image is worth a thousand words, of course).
Not all songs will speak to you. The events they are inspired by and the feelings they communicate may seem alien. You can reason about them, though you do not experience them viscerally. For example, I do not feel anything special when I listen to the average Taylor Swift song. Her quality is undeniable. It just happens that I cannot relate to a heartbroken teenage girl (yes, Taylor Swift covers more themes, but you get the idea).
People make the mistake of searching for the eternal in that which is grand. Pay close attention and you will find it right in front of you.