Arsen Dedić: From a Fiasco in Drniš to an Eternal Musical Legacy
On this day in 2015, the singer-songwriter, poet, and painter passed away, leaving behind songs that generations still sing, and his hometown continues to live with his verses.
On this day in 2015, the singer-songwriter, poet, and painter passed away, leaving behind songs that generations still sing, and his hometown continues to live with his verses.
On this day, August 17, marks 11 years since Croatia lost Arsen Dedić. The Šibenik-born singer-songwriter, poet, composer, and painter passed away in 2015, and had he lived, he would have turned 88 at the end of July this year. But his songs do not fade; on the contrary, in his native Šibenik, they are listened to more than ever.
Arsen's artistic journey did not start brilliantly. His first concert, held in 1953 in Drniš, was covered by Slobodna Dalmacija under the headline "Fiasco in Drniš." But from that beginning to the end of his career, the trajectory only went upward. Two years after that concert, in 1957, he moved to Zagreb and began building a body of work that today stands as one of the most valuable in Croatian music and poetry.
Singer Natali Dizdar still performs the lyrics Arsen wrote for her: "I'll replace you with a worse one, deliberately, deliberately, because your heart is fragile, boundless..." The same words, along with many others, were sung by Ksenija Erker, Zdravko Čolić, Mladen Burnać, and numerous other artists who had the privilege of collaborating with him.
Arsen's verses stand shoulder to shoulder with the lyricism of his greatest idol, Tin Ujević, as well as Dobriša Cesarić, Ivan Slamnig, Željko Sabol, and Mak Dizdar. Arsen himself emphasized how much Ujević meant to him, though he never had the chance to meet him. "My late godfather Zvonimir Golob used to sit with Tin at Tip Top until the end of his life. I wasn't lucky enough to meet Tin. He died on November 11, 1955. Unfortunately, I only started living in Zagreb in 1957, so I never had the chance to even embrace Tin..." Arsen once said.
Actor Zlatko Vitez once remarked: "If Arsen had happened to be a poet from some Anglo-Saxon country, not our small Croatia, he would surely have won the Nobel Prize in Literature. I said this long before Bob Dylan won it, whom I, of course, respect."
Arsen was known for his unique language-witty, cynical, at times as venomous as it was refined. Šibenik chronicler Darko Gulin compiled his thoughts into the book "Arsenisms," which quickly sold out. In it, you can find lines like "Our people prefer a heart on the grill to a brain with eggs!" or remarks about "self-lovers who know notes by sight" and the "terror of klapa groups."
His wife Gabi once revealed another side of his personality: "He was a very difficult person, and you had to endure his moments. He could be extremely sharp, sarcastic, and offended many. But he was also gentle and good, truly a poet. I could tell from his songs what phase he was in. He was clairvoyant in his lyrics. It was a struggle within him. He needed support that would be present and forgiving."
Arsen would rise early, around five in the morning, and start writing before six. "I take refuge in work," he would say. He had a low opinion of the pop music scene: "I have neither the time nor the interest for such things. I only notice that we have a huge production of pop stars, and I'm only interested in where all these people will work and what they'll eat. Whoever you ask if they're a mechanic or a bricklayer, they correct you and say, 'No, I'm a vocal soloist.' Wonderful!"
His dedication to work was tireless. "Sometimes I even wonder how I wrote something, and I think a good angel stood behind me whispering the verses. I used to think I would bear mental pain harder and that physical pain was negligible, but today I tell everyone: 'Try it a bit and you'll see'... Maybe it's all an intense longing for work. It was pounding out of me, and I wrote on my knees, like the partisans, like Moša Pijade on that monument in front of the Open University. Or Ivan Goran Kovačić when he wrote 'The Pit.'"
After Arsen's death, three books about him were published: Zlatko Gall's biography, Gulin's "Arsenisms," and Diana Šetka's "Arsen, Memories." He himself was a man of books, and his own book "Ship in a Bottle" alone reached a print run of 60,000 copies. "For an artist, their work is their afterlife," he once said. His work granted him eternal life.
Arsen believed that talent is recognized despite everything. At festivals in the '60s and '70s, he regularly lost and didn't win awards, but in the late '60s and early '70s, girls kept his posters in their rooms. He was a star because talent was still recognized, and his songs, from "Girl from My Region" to "Pretty Provincial Girls," remain part of Croatian cultural heritage today.
