Hi
My Grandad was Latvian and has passed away last week. We are trying to find a copy of a song which he used to sing to us when we were younger but cannot seem to find a good copy of it anywhere. So here’s the strange question, I was wondering whether anyone might have a copy of it which they could forward to me via e mail in time for the funeral which is on Thursday.
The title of the song is Kur Tu Teci. Believe it is an old nursery rhyme.

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks
Lee

Googling I found:

http://www.dziesmas.lv/index.asp?page=lyrics&id=5867

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXqcw-Cw8aw

My sympathies for your loss.

Hello Lee

I vaguely recall the lines ‘Kur tu teci, kur tu teci, gailit manu, no ritina agruma’, the response including the words ‘meitas celt, meitas celt’. In a sense the cockerel was the old latvian’s clock, waking up the household early in the morning, and it looks as if in this particular daina the cockerel, after crowing, was on his way to waken the daughters of the house.

The dainas have been classifieds from several perspectives, including alphabetical, so you might be able to locate the one that interests you by using a search engine, like Google, entering ‘dainas search’ or a similar expression, and then ‘kur tu teci’. Given a few words, the engine will come up with the full text.

One such search engine address is http://latviandainas.lib.virginia.edu/?lang=eng&section=intro (hope I got the spelling right!)

Sorry about your loss. Time is a great healer, but at first it is difficult to come to terms with a loss like yours.

Visu labu

Gunars.berzins

“Kur tu teci” is a popular folk song-- it is also considered a popular “neratna tautas dziesma"( naughty folk song ), sung by Latvian soldiers. Figure it out! ;-)

Idon’t know about these kinky rhymes. Austris Grassis was a big promoter
of that theory. It’s just a theory. Maybe the rooster knows?

This is correct:

“ “Kur tu teci” is a popular folk song-- it is also considered a popular “neratna tautas dziesma"( naughty folk song ), sung by Latvian soldiers.”

There was during WW II nary a song that we did not improve either “neratni” or “anti-occupant” While the ones created during Russian-Bolshevik occupation of 1940-1941 were hidden, and surfaced with arrival of Germans, the anti-German ones were often openly sung by us while marching.  We assumed that “Frici” did not understood our language nor the expressed meanings, It was after the war when I learned that some of the Germans knew very well the subject matter of our songs, but were ignoring for a simple reason.  They needed manpower and figured that Russians eventually will take care of us .  The general thinking among Germans - think about it when now-days “Latvijas Tauta” is crawling in front of Germans - was that each and every Latvian by stopping a Bolshevik bullet was saving a German’s life.

Sorry, I have forgotten most of the songs :(

Mr. L. L.

Hello Kristine

Not difficult to see your interpretation, but it seems very unlikely that someone would sing the song before his grandchildren with any such thoughts in mind.

Gunars