KURAKLIK İNSANLARI (PEOPLE OF THE DROUGHT)

My initial idea was to create something that was a critique of society, and I was going to call it KULAKLIK İNSANLARI (Headphone People)(1). I could have approached this in two different ways.

1- Maybe someone is being attacked right around the corner somewhere, but I don’t hear it because I have my headphones on. I mean, we completely block one of our sensory connections to the outside world. We can’t tolerate the noises emanating from the world we are trapped in. I assume if we had the option, we would also choose not to see or smell (we can do this to some extent but a Nosify app that replaces the current smell of the environment with another, has yet to be developed). I mean, touching things is already quite gross, as everything is dirty. 

Headphones come before the ears, headphones are now the new ears. Our first sense organ is the headphone because what we hear through them is entirely under our control. I don’t know if it’s crazy, I mean a hundred years ago you had no idea what you’d be hearing next. Now, we have a medium where we can control it. Once we put them on, and especially if they are equipped with a nice noise-cancelling feature, you know exactly what you’ll be hearing for the next three or four minutes. It is a kind of power to determine the future, my friends. Take this power, and use it to fund the great landfill of sound.

2- In this age where everyone walks around with headphones on, the reality I saw was that people could scream whatever they wanted, and no one would hear it. We are actually free to express anything we want, because everyone has headphones on anyway, so no one is really listening. At the time, I was obsessed with the idea that all of the behavior we displayed on the outside (especially in city life), was shaped by society’s judgements, and that the more we repressed what was within us, the more our mental health would suffer. I don’t believe that the version of ourselves we switch to when we step outside is a part of our identity. That is just the solution we find to a problem. The problem is that in big cities, every time we step outside, we encounter thousands of unfamiliar faces. Anyone can be among those faces. And you never know how, or to what people will react. Therefore, one needs to create a street persona that can fit any kind of situation. But, when the persona is repeated too often, goes unnoticed or no effort is made to develop it, it takes over the person. This leads to an identity crisis and thoughts of, “Who the hell am I?” or “Screw my façade”.

• That cringe you feel when watching a close friend interact with a stranger on the street. 

Cringe: Witnessing someone you know very well on the inside act completely different on the outside.

People who live in small towns, on the other hand, see the same familiar faces everyday and can allow those people to reach the depths of their character. As their level of understanding one another grows, they can mutually express their true selves on the outside. As social creatures, we should be exposed to people we know more than we are exposed to strangers, and make an effort to introduce ourselves to more people. That way, if we ever forget who we are, the people we know can tell us “You’ve changed for the worse.” Then, we can then put our thinking caps on and wonder “Who the hell did I use to be?” Anyway, as these thoughts blossomed, “Headphone People” inevitably led to the line “People of the Drought”, and my sister suggested that we follow this path. At first, just like with any other creative idea I’ve poured a lot of effort into, I wasn’t quite keen. In fact, I vaguely even remember us arguing about it. But, after the new subject had settled into my brain, while working on the chords I had already written, I realized that the “People of the Drought” theme indeed had a better flow. The most common experience in my creative process is that the theme often writes itself. Even if I insist on some ideas, when I hit a block, a new theme might be pushing to emerge from underneath. Oftentimes, the initial theme is the trigger that pushes us to start. This can be part of a struggle where we put our consciousness to work. Once the creative process begins, then the subconscious starts to reveal itself. In this case, my subconscious was triggered with the help of my sister’s guidance. I don’t believe this was a coincidence. I had already been meaning to write a song about climate. I believe it is a topic that our generation urgently needs to tackle; yet we are hardly able to lift our heads from the political pressure enough to engage ourselves with the world’s problems. Still, this topic should stay in the spotlight and become a central theme in art, remaining relevant as a part of our collective memory. I was just feeling unqualified to write about such a detailed subject. I am not an expert but I have read and thought about this topic more than the average citizen. With this in mind, I have decided to park my inferiority complex and get to work. After all, I wasn’t writing a scientific paper.

Kuraklık İnsanları reached its final shape throughout the writing process and became a science fiction story. The year 2050 is considered a tipping point for the climate crisis, after which the visible impact is expected to surpass manageable levels. So, in the first part of the song, I tried to portray today’s people -which meant I could keep the “Headphone People” idea-, the current effects of climate change(like coral bleaching and rising ocean acidity), and the process leading up to 2050. 

In the last part, I wanted to depict what it might be like when things spiral out of control and my most ambitious goal was to create an ambiance through the sound and lyrics that would evoke that feeling within people.

I thought if I could convey how something that has not yet happened might feel, I’d be making a significant contribution to the cause. Because while we easily forget what we’ve thought or learnt, we have a harder time erasing what we’ve felt.

As time goes on, I see this song deepen its impact on people. It was the fourth song we released and ended up being a bit of a victim of our amateurism. If we had waited a little longer, it could have received a more professional treatment but I believe that the formula to moving forward in life is to not become stuck on the pursuit of perfection.

(1)  The song titles were kept in their original Turkish form. However, it is important to note that the words “kuraklık” (drought) and “kulaklık” (headphones) -although different in meaning- are phonetically almost identical in Turkish.— Trans. note.