Songs
The album may be considered an historic, or mythical, rock opera about Croatia. It begins with "Početak", which starts with the opening lines from the Gospel of John and continues with God's creation of the world and humanity's actions in it. It then continues with "Dolazak Hrvata" (describing the arrival of the Croats), which deals with how the Croatian people came to their land. The third song, "Duh ratnika", is a dramatic dialogue between Marko Perković (Thompson) and the ghost of a Croatian warrior. The warrior does not recognize Croatia as the land for which he died, and the song is a call to make sovereign Croatia a nation of which to be proud. It continues with "Diva Grabovčeva", a song about a legendary Croatian maiden from Rama, Bosnia and Herzegovina who refused to marry a Turkish bey during the region's Ottoman occupation and was killed. This is followed by "Moj dida i ja", a tribute to Perković's grandfather. The first side of the album ends with "Neko ni'ko ne dira u moj mali dio svemira", a reply to the accusations about the band's alleged sympathies with neo-fascism.
Side two begins with a patriotic love song popular as a single, "Lipa Kaja". The next song, "Kletva kralja Zvonimira", is about another Croatian legend. When the Croats betrayed King Dmitar Zvonimir and killed him, he cursed them so that they would never again have a ruler from their own blood. This curse was supposedly broken with Croatian independence in 1991, but corrupt politicians are betraying the country. The next song, "Ratnici svjetla", is full of pride and hope. It explores a fallen soldier's memory, asking everyone to keep it alive and ending with their brothers in arms, families and the people banding together again with candles in their hands as "soldiers of light".
Read more about this topic: Bilo Jednom U Hrvatskoj
Famous quotes containing the word songs:
“How learned he bitter songs of lost Iambe,
Or that a cup-shaped breast is nothing vile?”
—Allen Tate (1899–1979)
“When we were at school we were taught to sing the songs of the Europeans. How many of us were taught the songs of the Wanyamwezi or of the Wahehe? Many of us have learnt to dance the rumba, or the cha cha, to rock and roll and to twist and even to dance the waltz and foxtrot. But how many of us can dance, or have even heard of the gombe sugu, the mangala, nyang’umumi, kiduo, or lele mama?”
—Julius K. Nyerere (b. 1922)
“And songs climb out of the flames of the near campfires,
Pale, pastel things exquisite in their frailness
With a note or two to indicate it isn’t lost,
On them at least. The songs decorate our notion of the world
And mark its limits, like a frieze of soap-bubbles.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)