Poets who write for bands have the honor of being loved even by those who don't know about them and have never heard of them. Radoman Kanjevac wrote some of the biggest hits of the band Galija. These are atypical lyrics, which, along with the music, become codes, which everyone interprets in their own way, extracting a clear message. On the song "Raise your hand" Many raise their hands, singing along, unconsciously paying homage not only to the band but also to the author of the lyrics, the poet.
In the song Did you dream?, verses "Does it annoy you/When I send you a butterfly from space?" people love it, although it's not necessary that they know how to interpret it. It's not necessary. Trumpets, Touch me, Skadarska, there are still messages in these poems that an attentive listener or reader can grab, embrace. All of this was woven by Radoman Kanjevac, an exceptional poet and a great gentleman who passed away a few days ago. Since there was never any pathos in his poetry, there is no need for it to be in this text, but it must be said that he did leave too soon and that it is a shame that he did.
A song that crosses borders today, once connected people and cities, and they sang the lyrics of Radoman Kanjevac precisely Dino Dvornik i Victoria. We are talking, of course, about the song "From Split to Belgrade".
It's easy to hear music, it's easier to swallow poetry like that. But in his poetry books, there are many unsung verses. Those images are just as powerful. First of all, sincere and honest, like their author was. There are fewer and fewer such, monolithic people of the high caliber that he was. Radoman Kanjevac, as an editor, poet or journalist, always had a point of view. He edited the first independent (we can even say free) television in Yugoslavia in 1989. OK television (youth channel) lasted only 28 days, symbolically that much freedom was allowed, it was part of Index's radio theater, but he also edited Radio Belgrade 2, which, with carefully selected collaborators in the age of the internet and YouTube, became a safe haven of culture and taste.
For anyone who wants to get to know the poet later, a good place to start is his poem, I don't think you know who you're dealing with, kid. Perhaps these verses contain the most wit, sincerity, and lyrical mastery:"Going to a psychiatrist in Serbia is a great shame/That's why every song in my country is/An honest confession of an idiot/Abandoned - because he likes to be abandoned/That's the mentality/Anything other than defeat is a failure/An attack on identity./Being abandoned on time is considered/the greatest success/In the country that gave the most abandoned people." It should be borne in mind that this is written by a true patriot, aware of all the qualities and shortcomings of the people to whom he belongs.
Finally, it is worth, but really worth reading the book "The Fog Shop". These are sketches by Radoman Kanjevac, about phenomena, cities, phenomena, people, but all written in such a Proustian way, short and precise thoughts. It is one of those books that even if you open it at random, any page or chapter, you read the book as if it were the beginning, because wherever you start reading, you will come full circle.
In one of these essays, entitled “Being the Other,” he talks about the importance of the existence of otherness. A nice observation and the connection between the exclusivity of Radio Belgrade’s Second Program, that there would be no musical duets without the other, and that there would be no tennis or boxing without the other. After all, as Radoman Kanjevac says in that text: “If there had been no other Petar Petrović, perhaps there would have been no Njegoš either.”
Read Radoman Kanjevac, it's for your own good.
Bonus video:
