#no day

Just keeping you informed 😉 🖕

October 28th, the No Day, is dawning (Greece’s National Holiday celebrating the Resistance against the Axis Powers between 1940 - 1944) and because I couldn’t make a more fitting post right now, I will just give you three songs that probably every Greek has heard but 99% don’t know their title. This is a post mostly for native Greeks but you can all celebrate our Day with some good Greek music :D

1. The title song for the show Αλάτι της Γης (Salt of the Earth).

This is a great music show broadcasted weekly in the state-owned ΕΡΤ TV channel. It features folk artists and music from all the corners of the Greek-speaking world. If you have turned on your TV on Sunday, you might have heard that cheerful folk tune but have no idea which song it is. There is a dispute over whether it’s a traditional Macedonian or a Minor Asian karsilamás and specifically the song “Σύρε να πεις στη μάνα σου”. Who knows. What’s certain is that the closest version you can find on YouTube is by Aristides Vasilaris, played in fife (like in the show).

2. The theme from ΑΒ Βασιλόπουλος TV spot for Christmas 2016

ΑΒ Βασιλόπουλος is one of the biggest supermarket chains in Greece. During Christmas 2016, they released a TV advertisement with a beautiful and very sweet music piece played in piano. This was composed exclusively for the TV spot so it wasn’t reproduced and sold. Thankfully, a blessed soul played it by ear and you can find it on YouTube.

and now... the one that I simply will not believe you haven’t searched if you are a native Greek, and if you really haven’t, please don’t tell me, (jk or am I)

3. The theme of  the BRAVO coffee advertisements

You just had a “finally” moment, right? RIGHT? A similar case with above, BRAVO coffee is one of the biggest and oldest Greek producers of coffee. For many decades, they broadcast TV spots with a piece of music that is very distinct, very memorable, very beautiful and very Greek. The theme was composed by Yannis Kyrris and then remixed for the company and it is the most locked / protected / top secret music piece I’ve ever heard, for real. So much that it works horribly at the expense of the song, which should have been promoted instead of being kept so obsessively hidden. Eventually, the music piece was performed by another blessed soul. It is not the 100% perfection that the TV spots soundtrack is but it is 99% there and it is musically correct so it’s your best chance to download or just enjoy it without TV voiceovers.

I have a very special spot in my heart for this music piece since childhood. It always made me dream of the sea (the Aegean duh) and captains and pirate ships. It is one of the most distinctly Greek tunes you can hear. Here you can listen to it in its original form in a TV Spot from 1995.