Culinary Communion

    I want to write about a Turkish song, "Saçlar" by Kalben. Its title literally translates to "Hair" or "Strands of hair".

    It's a song about finding many random strands of hair around your house after spending the night with somebody. It's on your bed, your furniture, your floor, everywhere.

    I like this live version of it. In general I like going and tracking down live or acoustic versions of songs I like. Something about those performances feel more intimate, more special. There's also a moment in this video that I find kind of sweet. Two people in the audience, who are sitting on the floor, embrace one another. One leans their head on the other, and in return she embraces her head. It's not a big moment, just a small, soft moment. These people were there, in that moment, and got to experience this. It's been a decade, they are (hopefully) somewhere out in the world. Maybe they're still in one another's lives, or maybe they haven't spoken to one another in years. Regardless of what they're doing now, this slice in time still exists as something that has happened.

    The narrator of the song has broken up with her now-ex-partner, but she's still in love. She's now trying to fill that void by spending her nights with random people, who mean nothing to her. That's where the many scattered strands of hair come from, they're the hairs of the strangers that she has slept with, and it's impossible to identify which strand you find belongs to whom. "Whose are these strands of hair? I can't tell" one verse reads.

    "I thought it was you here/No, it is not so" The person next to her is a stranger, and the feeling of her past partner's presence lingers, like a phantom limb. A sore spot in a piece of you that you no longer have.

    We then learn that the narrator used to be self loathing and had a low sense of self-worth. The narrator didn't think they deserved the love that they received from their partner. "If it had been me in your place, I wouldn't have looked my way. / I wouldn't even have made a bowl of soup for me"

    "You taught me all of these"

    You don't think you deserve love. And then someone loves you so, and values you more than the value you saw in yourself. And they cook for you. They lovingly make food for you. Cooking a piece of food for someone you love. It's like eucharist. You are giving them a piece of you, a piece of yourself and your spirit. This tomato soup is the blood. These croutons, the body. You eat it. And then you write a song about it. You remember them.




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