Misirlou: Istanbul to South California

Even if you don’t recognise the name Misirlou you will know the melody. It has been covered well over a hundred times and sampled to death. Misirlou is a folk melody from the Ottoman Empire that emerged some time before 1920 (although it’s not unreasonable to assume it’s much older than that).

The song was widely popularised by Dick Dale & His Del-Tones 1962 surf rock instrumental that later saw a second wave of interest when director Quentin Tarantino used Dale’s recording in his 1994 film Pulp Fiction. However the origins of this song date back much further to a folk song from the Ottoman Empire.

The title Misirlou is anglicised from the Turkish word Mısırlı, meaning Egypt. Wikipedia does a better job of describing the etymology:

Misirlou (Μισιρλού), due to the suffix “ou”, is the feminine form (in Greek) of Misirlis (Μισιρλής- a surname) which comes from the Turkish word Mısırlı, which is formed by combining Mısır (“Egypt” in Turkish, borrowed from Arabic مِصر‎ Miṣr) with the Turkish -lı suffix, literally meaning “Egyptian”. Therefore, the song is about an Egyptian woman. The original Turkish word Mısırlı is, however, genderless.
Wikipedia

The history of the song is interesting in its own right so I thought I’d look a little further into it. A playlist of all the music in this article, plus more covers, can be found here:

Origins and early recordings

The first recorded version of Misirlou is by Theodotos Demetriades (or Τέτος Δημητριάδης to his friends) in 1927, however there’s no suggestion he is the original composer of the piece. Demetriades fled the Ottoman Empire to America and had a recording career from 1922 to to the early 1940s. Below is his rendition of Misirlou.

The tune Misirlou is well known to Greek as well as Turkish, Arabic and Jewish musician. The origins of it are unclear. The characteristic melody is a well established Western trope for Klezmer and Middle Eastern music, perhaps not without some basis in truth.

The melody uses the Double harmonic scale, which Wikipedia usefully informs us is “a scale whose gaps [intervals] may sound unfamiliar to Western listeners”. Thanks! This scale (or mode) is well documented in Arabic Maqam traditions, known as the Hijaz Kar. Interestingly, we can find a Hindustani raga with similar intervals too (Bhairav).

Raag Bhairav is often referred to as the king of morning Raags. It produces a rich atmosphere. The Rishabh and Dhaivat used here are oscillating which is strongly recommended in this Raag and it makes the Raag mood intense.
tanarang.com

Let’s have a look at Demetriades’s melody in notation. We’re in the key of Eb major here, however there are a numerous deviations from the diatonic Eb Ionian mode:

Eb Fb G Ab Bb Cb D Eb

The Fb and Cb are perhaps better understood as E natural and B natural for those unfamiliar with enharmonic. This means the scale has the following intervals: 1, b2, 3, 4, 5, b6, 7, or root, minor second, major third, perfect fourth, perfect fifth, minor sixth, major seventh.

There are three main sections. The first is the most recognisable. This moves up the scale in stepwise motion. This is the introduction but also forms the primary material for the verses. I’ve transcribed this at around 130 bpm but it could easily be felt at half the time of that.

The second section follows directly after the above four measures and is used almost like a turn around in western jazz nomenclature:

The final section is the “B” material, or bridge. The notation below is simplified, in reality the timing of the eighth notes in much more fluid.

The 1940s: Big Band and Beguine

After Demetriades’s there are some notable recordings. Discogs doesn’t document anything pre-1940 so we have to pick up there. Both Harry James and Xavier Cugat released big band arrangements in 1941.

The Harry James Big Band perform an easy-listening cinematic number with a heavily ornamented string melody, perhaps chosen because of the instruments ability to play between quarter tone inflection and better imitate the inflections common to traditional Arabic music.

Xavier Cugat’s is a more boisterous and up-tempo rumba. This has such an interesting rhythmic signature to it – the main melody (from 0:16) play so far ahead of the pulse in such a deliberate way.

Hat tips to Jan August, Charles Magnante and Freddy Martin who all made very interesting recording of this song towards the end of the decade. While the melody has a distinctly middle eastern feel to it, the rhythm sections were beginning to codify this as a latin song. Last version from this decade, Woody Herman’s Big band, which is the first record I can find of english lyrics being applied to the melody:

I should also mention at this point the excellent compilation album Misirlou – The Route of the Song from the 20s to 50s on 78 rpm Records, which was useful in sourcing some of the older recordings on Spotify.

The 1950s: Exotica and Easy listening

In the late 1950 there was an explosion of the exotica genre – heavily orchestrated easy listening instrumental music that attempted to incorporate many of the other-worldly places cinema audiences were seeing with the smoother more commercial American big band traditions.

…musical colloquialism exotica means tropical ersatz, the non-native, pseudo experience of insular Oceania, Southeast Asia, Hawaii, the Amazon basin, the Andes, the Caribbean and tribal Africa.
Wikipedia

The music might be looked upon as kitsch, tawdry and inauthentic, but I don’t think the composers had any ill intentions and I have to confess I quite like some of the music!

Interestingly there’s a spinoff genres where these heavily orchestrated big bands were making easy listening science fiction music, one of my favourites it Music out of the Moon by theremin player Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman and composer/arranger Lee Baxter. Hmmm!

Anyway back to Misirlou, a catchy melody that has already seen numerous big bands arrange the “exotic” (big air quotes) melody for large ensembles. Coupled with arrangers penchant for putting the melody to various latin rhythms it was ripe for the genre.

There are 34 documented recordings of Misirlou in the 1950s and 21 of those appear from 1958 to 1959. Some earlier recordings of interest are Leon Berry’s from 1953 that has what sounds like a Wurlitzer organ to my ears (think early 20th century British seaside music). Note this recorded has a pretty damaged stereo image!

Ralph Marterie’s version is perhaps the first version I can recall with an electric guitar.

This version by Cardinals is listed on Discogs as Doo Wop, Rhythm & Blues, which I can certainly hear.

This is another guitar heavy version which has some fantastic intro that sees a muted electric guitar play into unison with some sort of tuned percussion (marimba?). A genuinely fun and playful version.

Korla Pandit born John Roland Redd, an African American who passed himself off as a New-Deli born musician. I’ll leave it at that. You can draw your own conclusions. Let’s just say some of this wouldn’t pass in 2022.

An interesting shuffle version with a walking bass and hints at a twelve bar blues form.

The 1960s: Dick Dale & His Del-Tones and the Surf explosion

The swinging 60s saw a huge 78 documented releases of Misirlou. Many of these rereleases of earlier version or compilation. Most of the early 1960s versions rehash the same easy listening quasi exotic big bans and latin feel of the 1950s. This version by Stanley Black and his Orchestra is quite tasty though.

During the late 1950s and early 1960s, the USA saw it’s first wave (no pun intended) of surf rock. While latter iterations did include vocals the genre was primarily instrumental. The sonic qualities of surf rock are bouncy spring reverb drenched clean electric guitars, big roomy drum sounds and fast paced songs.

One of the pioneers of the idiom was Lebanese-American Dick Dale and his band the Del-Tones. His 1962 cover featured fast tremolo picking done to replicate Oud playing (a stringed instrument native to the Middle East and North Africa).

The next year The Beach Boys recorded their own take, directly influenced by Dale’s version, as it’s almost an exact mimic.

The other really big surf band everyone’s heard of, The Surfaris (of Wipe Out fame) also recorded their own slightly more original cover:

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the number of surf covers. We’re only in 1963 and suddenly all of those cool bossa nova orchestral songs your parents listened to sound quite old hat compared to this new surf sound. Misirlou almost became a surf standard, a rite of passage.

This version by Vince Guaraldi to my ears still sounds quite fresh. It’s a smaller ensemble, which means you can rely more on improvisation and less on notated music. The piano comping has some tasty altered dominant voicings that are really crunchy. Clearly this is hugely influenced by the hard bop scene the likes of Art Blakey, Horace Silver, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk.

This is from an album called Progressive Ragtime Bluegrass And Other Instrumentals 2. How could I not include it? The lead instrument here is a banjo, which oddly has tonal similarities to some middle eastern stringed instruments.

This version by Buddy Merrill is suitably odd. A polished sound that is both idiosyncratically mid 60s but also quite fresh and original:

By 1967 you find far fewer covers, but some gems do turn up. This is more influenced by British psychedelic bands such as Cream:

Lastly from the decade, there is an interesting inclusion on the album Sitar goes Latin, which sadly is not on Spotify:

The 1970s: a lull

The wind had been taken out of the sales slightly. Even towards the end of the 60s as surf subsided and psychedelic rock took over, the song failed to inspire many covers of it. In the 70s there are a few notable examples of covers.

This from Roger Williams has an upbeat driving proto-disco rhythm section which is hard to believe is from as early as 1973, but the melody is performed in a hammed up manner with a lot of unnecessary improvisation and stylisation that paired with the very arranged tuttis of the band and some other slightly poorly dated early 70s tropes makes it feel like game-show music. To be clear (Roger, if you’re reading this) I quite like it! Very ambitious.

I don’t know about the artistic integrity of this record as it’s form an album called The Art of Belly Dancing, but taking it at face value, it’s one of the most authentic versions an American has produced (although George was of Egyptian heritage so that might explain why!).

This includes some great qanun playing (another arabic stringed instrument) as well as some great percussion. What’s great about it though, is that it feels like it was made in the 70s, so has great sonics.

One of the few examples in this list of an artist from the native country this song could have originated from. Manolis Angelopoulos (or Μανώλης Αγγελόπουλος) is a Greek singer of Romani origin. I don’t love this version, as it feels like those new age cover versions of popular songs you hear in Chinese restaurants, but I felt the guy deserved recognition. Unsure where he fits into the pantheon of great Greek musicians.

The 1990 and beyond: Pulp Fiction and second wind

Scouring Discogs and Spotify I was hoping to find loads of experimented italo disco in the 80s or art rock or noisy punk versions, but I feel the melody is too familiar and the associations with retro American exotica or surf rock probably leaves a slightly sour taste.

The best I could find was this 1995 euro dance version, which is objectively shit, but I also don’t hate it. Sometimes it’s not about being good, it’s just about being first.

The inclusion of Misirlou on the Pulp Fiction OST generated a huge amount of new interest for the song. I remember hearing it for the first time as a young kid and thinking it was the most badass thing ever. The melody is so catchy and and sassy. And the surf rock styling of a slightly overdriven guitar played as fast as you can muster with that obnoxious spring reverb catchy drum groove. So good!

Dick Dale rerecord it for release in 1997. It’s terrible. I don’t know who was advising him, but he should have steered clear. No offence Dick, you’re a legend.

Since then the song has been sampled a good deal, most notoriously by The Black Eyed Peas on their song Pump It

Trentemøller – Silver Surfer, Ghost Rider Go!!! …a live-sounding scatty number I can’t really put my finger on. I’ve normally known Trentemøller for making introspective ambient downtempo house and beard stroking electronic music. This is quite… fun?

Steve Aoki took a break from crowd surfing in a rubber dingy and throwing cake at his audience to produce this with Timmy Trumpet:

And lastly some mid 90s jungle, that also samples the dialog from the opening diner scene in Pulp Fiction by GT and Paul Ibiza, imaginatively named Pulp Fiction.