With the First Raindrop...

"With the first raindrop,
summer was killed.
The words, which were filled with shining stars,
got soaked.

Many were the words which were only destined for you.

Before my eyes existed, you were light.
Before eros, you were eros.
And when the kiss got you, you were woman.

Where to lay our hands, now that time doesn't care for us.
Where to lay our eyes, now that the faraway lines have capsized in the clouds.
We're all alone, surrounded by your dead images".


Lyrics by Odysseas Elytis (tranlsated by E.Vosnaki), music by Manos Hadjidakis from his Magnus Eroticus* LP (1972).


*Magnus Eroticus is a pop God who lives in our imagination from the time we're born, till the time we die; beautiful, pubertal and constantly alive." ~Manos Hadjidakis

"All Alone Am I" or the Adventures of a Greek Song

"Word upon word, we lost sense of time.
We recounted our pains and the night lapsed.
Wipe the tears with your handkerchief,
so that I can drink the sun from your lips.

Don't ask the sky,
the cloud and the moon.
Your dark gaze,
something of the night has got.

Whatever found us, whatever made us sorry
struck us secretly like a knife.
Wipe the tears with your handkerchief,
so that I can drink the sun from your lips".

Sung by Jenny Karezi in the Greek film The Island of the Brave


"All Alone Am I" is the title of a song from 1962 by the American singer Brenda Lee. The music was originally composed by the Greek composer Manos Hadjidakis and recorded by Tzeni Karezi for the soundtrack of the film The Island of the Brave. Later, a new version of the song was produced by Owen Bradley and appeared as the title track on one of Lee's albums. But did it all come to that?

In 1960, the Greek film Never on Sunday was released to considerable acclaim, earning multiple Academy Award nominations in the US. The film's star, Melina Mercouri, was nominated for Best Actress, while the title song from the film won the Oscar for Best Original Song for Greek musician Manos Hadjidakis, who had composed the music used in the film. A melody that appeared in both Never on Sunday and The Island of the Brave was sent to Lee's management as a tune to be considered for the singer to record, and after being translated into English by Arthur Altman, it became "All Alone Am I"

"All Alone Am I" became a Top 10 pop hit in both the US and the UK. The song peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in November 1962 and reached #7 on the UK Singles Chart in February 1963. The song also spent five weeks atop the US Billboard easy listening chart, Lee's only song to do so!

Lyrics were originally written by Ioannis Ioannidis.


Sung by Alkinoos Ioannidis and Demetra Galani.

Translation of lyrics by Elena Vosnaki.

Sapphic Plea: "Come back to me, Gogyla"

"Come back to me, Gogyla, I beg you!
Show yourself to me again...wearing the milky-white robe.
Oh, what beauty!
If you but knew what passions you awaken, thus adorned...
and how joyful I am that it is not I, but the Goddess from Cyprus herself that is reproaching you;
whom I have for many years begged and beseeched.
Gogyla!
It is as if I long to die on the river banks where the lotus flower blooms,
gazing through the mist at Acheron."

Nana Venetsanou sings a classic poem by Sappho in the ancient Aeolic Greek dialect, put to music by Manos Hadjidakis. The accompanying paintings are mainly by the Pre-Raphaelites, greatly influenced by classical antiquity.

Street of Dreams

Every garden has a nest for the birds
Every street has a heart for the children
But you my lady, what are you chatting with the dawn about
gazing at the stars that keep falling like rain...
Give me your hair to make them a prayer
And I will start my song from the beginning
Every house hides some love
In its silence
But there is a boy who treats love
As shame.

Street of dreams (1962): music & lyrics by Manos Hadjidakis, sung by Yiorgo Marinos.