Shoot Me

Ahmet Kaya from Devamı Var album cover

 Lesson 39 | -ecekti Past Future

Throughout Unit 3, we've explored complex combination of affixes and the finer points of Turkish grammar, and we're ending strong with an exploration of a verb tense used only for describing things that will never happen.

The singer in this song is Ahmet Kaya, who was profiled in Lesson 20 and the words are written by his frequent partner Yusuf Hayaloğlu. The song revolves around the implicit story of a fugitive, and if we know the songs of Ahmet Kaya, we might suspect of the political variety. In the songs, he describes a scene that was going to take if he had escaped the danger around him.

Our grammatical focus is on the bridge and the -ecekti verbal ending contained within. This ending is composed of two basic verb tenses: the -ecek future tense and the -di past tense ending. When their powers combining, they form a future that existed only in the past, a meaning similar to the English construction of "going to."

We see this in the sentence "sırrımı söyleyecektim" or "I was going to tell you my secret". In the song, Ahmet Kaya has some secret activities that he has not revealed to his beloved, but had he not been caught, this was going to be the night that he told her everything. In other words, the sentence is not merely "I would have told you" but I was really, definitely "going to tell you".

There's a lot of great word choice in this song. Try to pick up some of this more advanced vocabulary, as it will help out in subsequent units.

Vocabulary



pusu - ambush
ince - fine, thin, delicate
engerek - viper
garip - strange, stranger (from Arabic)
sırt - back
iç - inside (noun)
tüfek - rifle, gun
mazlum - quiet, oppressed, subjugated
firar - running away, "the run", escape
sır - secret
mermi - bullet
kül - ashes
dağ - mountain
masum - innocent

gözlemek - to watch, to observe
ulaşmak - to reach, to arrive at
vurmak - here: to shoot, also to hit
savurmak - to scatter
tükenmek - to expire, to run out

oysa - otherwise

Bir ince pusudayım
A fine ambush awaits me
Yolumun üstü engerek
There is a viper on my road
Bir garip akşamdayım
I am in a strange evening
Sırtımı gözler tüfek
Rifles watch my back

Ben senin sokağına ulaşamam, dardayım
I cannot reach your street, I'm having trouble
O mazlum gözlerine bakamam, firardayım
I can't look at those quiet eyes, I am on the run

Oysa ben bu gece, yüreğim elimde
Otherwise tonight, with my heart in my hand
Sana bir sırrımı söyleyecektim
I was going to tell you one of my secrets
Şu mermi içimi delmeseydi eğer
If this bullet hadn't pierced my insides
Seni alıp götürecektim
I was going to take you and bring you with me

Beni vur... beni onlara verme
Shoot me, don't give me to them
Külümü al, uzak yollara savur
Take my ashes and throw them all over the distant roads
Dağılsın dağlara, dağılsın bu sevdamız
Let them spread in the mountains, let this love of ours spread
Ama sen ağlama dur
But don't cry, stop
Beni vur... beni onlara verme
Külümü al, uzak yollara savur
Dağılsın dağlara, dağılsın bu öykümüz
Let them spread in the mountains, let this story of ours spread
Ama sen ağlama dur

Bir ince pusudayım
A fine ambush awaits me
Bu gece zehir zemberek
Tonight is very bitter
Bir yolun sonundayım
I'm at the end of a road
Sessizce tükenerek
Silently expiring

Ah, senin ellerine / uzanamam, yerdeyim
Oh I can't reach your hands, I'm on the ground
O masum hayallere / varamam ölmekteyim
I cannot reach those innocent dreams, I am dying