Lyra Meurer's Writing Blog: Unpacking My Obsession with Zeki Müren, a Queer Turkish Icon

CW: Homophobia, transphobia, racism, cursing and slurs, sexual harassment, suicide, fatphobia

This was the first video of Zeki Müren I ever saw, the first song of his I ever heard. By my recollection, I stumbled across him on Wikipedia and, intrigued by his status as a presumably gay yet universally beloved Turkish musician, I went to Youtube.

I don't remember how I felt watching this. Intrigued, I suppose, pleased by the music and bemused by the campy hand dancing and gaudy epaulettes. I probably cringed a little.

Now, when I watch this video, I grin like a fool. I am besotted. I feel compelled to look up the lyrics again so I can sing along, but that means looking away from Zeki's hand gestures: pressed to his chest, drawing out the strains of the orchestra, clutching his face to indicate eyes ("gözü" -- he does this when performing other songs too). It means looking away from his face, lined as it was towards the end of his career, away from the solid paunch of his body.

Fuck, I love him, or what I can understand of him as a Westerner who only speaks English. I am rarely infatuated with celebrities, and my obsession with Zeki Müren reaches such dewy-eyed, paralytic extremes that it beats out my teenage feelings for Gogol Bordello frontman Eugene Hütz. I have convinced people to buy me Zeki Müren vinyl for my birthday. I have, in the depths of crushing depression, cried to imagine Zeki holding and comforting me like a friendly ghost. I have watched videos of his interviews -- all in Turkish -- just to listen to the calming lilt of his voice. I have dreamed of playing cards with Zeki, being in a bisexual menage a trois with him and another man, wearing clothes designed by him. I have considered learning Turkish so I can understand the words that come out of his mouth, the inflection of them, and so I can sing along better. I wish I could visit his house (now a museum) in Bodrum. In lieu of this, I have looked at every photo of it I can find.

All this, and it's hard to articulate why I'm so obsessed. I don't know any other Westerner who feels this way, though I am participating in a Turkish mania for the man, despite not having any associations with Turkey.

I recently published a short story in King Ludd's Rag that is a 2000s period piece and involves a teenage girl's obsession with Zeki Müren -- the kind of obsession I wish I'd gotten to have at that age. In honor of that, I decided to write a blog post where I attempt to explain, understand, and explore what is so compelling about Zeki Müren, and why you should at least know who he is.

Potential epilepsy warning on this video. There's a lot of camera flashes at points.

Zeki Müren, born in a wooden house in Bursa on December 6, 1931, was the son of a timber merchant. His first musical performance was as a shepherd in an school play. According to ŞOKOPOP's excellent 5 part video series (which I watched using auto captions and auto-translate, except for the 2nd video which didn't have captions allowed), Zeki Müren's career had more complicated origins than most English language sources describe, involving backyard plays and patronage from a local industrialist. Zeki Müren's career kicked off when he was 19 years old with an hour long live performance on TRT Istanbul Radio. This performance was an instant success. The fabulous website, Zeki Müren Hotline, describes the reaction thus:

"...the prominent Turkish Art Music vocalist Hamiyet Yüceses called the radio and requested to speak to Müren. She asked: 'My child, I listened to you and cried. Who are you?' The radio was flooded with similar calls that night. Listeners were enthused by this unique talent but also curious to know if he was female or male. Müren's youthful voice did not possess the markers of a single gender."

With that, Zeki Müren became a star. His face was used to sell radios, and the common jokes from purchasers were, "Does this one play Zeki Müren?" and, "Can Zeki Müren hear us too?" He soon began to appear in films, where he often played a man in a love triangle with two women (such a player!). From there, he conquered the world of gazinos (dinner clubs/night clubs), and he recorded live performances that aired on television. He also wrote poetry and made rugs.

Though he entered the scene as a charmingly bespectacled, suit-wearing slip of a boy, his style evolved over the years. In the late 1960s, after the death of his father and a world tour, he became known for wearing glittery, elaborate, campy outfits during his gazino and television performances (which sometimes caused problems with the state censors). He, of course, designed these himself, and named them things like "A Prince From Outer Space" and "Dr. Zhivago's Lover." He was known for his miniskirts (which caused an uproar in the press when first introduced), for descending onto the gazino stage on a swing, for wearing enormous platform heels.

It is hard to explain how big of a deal Zeki Müren was. When grasping for comparisons, people tend to call him Turkey's David Bowie or Liberace. They are trying to encapsulate several things about him into one package: his superstardom, his sequined outfits, his general camp, and his ambiguous gender and sexuality.

The problem is that David Bowie and Liberace both fall short of this particular mark. David Bowie was too open about his sexuality (though later in life he said he didn't feel he was bisexual after all) and, to put it bluntly, his music is too alt. Zeki Müren's field was Turkish classical music, bridging Ottoman traditions with pop (if I understand it correctly). And Liberace was, as this article outlines, too obsessed with maintaining his image as a straight man, to the point of suing magazines over it. He also didn't wear miniskirts. (SHOW SOME FUCKING LEG YOU COWARD!!)

Also, neither of them is a big enough deal. Neither of them is as deeply entwined with national identity, neither is so wholly ubiquitous, neither of them has the fascinating quality of someone who fucked with gender while also becoming a symbol for a nation's values. Zeki Müren was named State Artist in 1991, and over the course of his career was nicknamed the Sun of Art and Pasha ("General," basically). It's the kind of thing we don't do in English-speaking countries, this kind of nickname that informally brands a musician as a representative of a nation, like how Salamat Sadikova is The Voice of Kyrgyzstan, but all we have in the US are a hundred Kings and Queens of various genres.

Really, the best point of comparison for Zeki Müren's career is someone like Juan Gabriel or Chavela Vargas. Both of them had that widespread support, sexualities that remained a question for all or most of their careers, and were so popular that people flooded the streets for their funerals. We just don't get stars like that in the West -- for reasons that I'll speculate on later.

If you want a sense of public sentiment about Zeki Müren, go to any Youtube video of his music and autotranslate the comments. It is almost universally a flood of praise, nostalgia, and adoration. Or, visit the website for the Zeki Müren Hotline, a project, created 19 years after Müren's death, where anyone could call and leave a voicemail. "Ah, dear Pasha," laments one caller. "It's been a long time since you left. You can't imagine how I long for you. May Allah let you rest in peace. The Turkish nation misses you. Such elegant use of the Turkish language...Such magnificent art...We won't ever have the chance to see that again. Rest in holy lights! May the lights be your protector, my Pasha!"

Of course, the present day nostalgia belies Zeki Müren's storied career full of drama, rumors, health issues, plastic surgery, and impressive accomplishments. ŞOKOPOP's video series laid out the main events beautifully, but I only have space for examples. For example as his famous performance at the ancient Roman Theater of Aspendos, during which he was suffering from a gout flare -- which must've been excruciating. Or his many publicized love affairs with women, some of whom he was engaged to. But, alongside those, are the more secret love affairs with men -- one of whom even attempted to blackmail Zeki into funding a jeans store. There's also the standard tabloid fare of rivalries with other artists, especially Bülent Ersoy, another huge star, known as Diva, who also happened to be a trans woman. This rivalry was especially intense, with lots of mudslinging, homophobia and transphobia, and even allegations (which are potentially true) that Müren faked a heart attack so as to avoid performing stage shows, which weren't as well-attended as they used to be.

Müren retired from public life in the 90s due to health issues. He called this a period of "listening to oneself." He spent his time at his house in Bodrum, a seaside town near Bardakci Bay, which came to be nicknamed after him. According to Zeki Müren Hotline, he was quite taken with the Greek myth attached to Bardakci Bay: how the naiad Salmacis was infatuated with Hermaphroditus and prayed to be united with him forever. The gods answered her prayer and merged their bodies into one androgynous form.

On September 25, 1996, he appeared on TV to receive an award from TRT İzmir Television. In recognition of his accomplishments, he was given the microphone he first sang into in 1951, labelled "Batmayan Güneşimiz" -- "Our Never-Setting Sun."

The footage is hard to watch. Zeki's voice, usually so strong and smooth, is frail and trembling. His health had been in decline, and TRT had not handled him carefully, subjecting him to a three hour ride in a van and a ten minute speech during which he had to stand. He clings to the presenter for support and needs help holding the award. Either during the ceremony or shortly after, while still in the studio, he suffered a heart attack and died before the ambulance arrived. He was 64 years old.

Müren left his assets to veteran aid and educational causes, resulting in the Zeki Müren Fine Arts Anatolian High School in Bursa. The Turkish Ministry of Culture turned his house into a museum, called Zeki Müren Sanat Müzesi, or the Zeki Müren Art Museum. There, one can see his car, his living space more or less as he left it, embroidered and calligraphed renditions of lyrics from some of his most popular songs, photos, and his fabulous outfits, jewelry, and glasses.

My obsession with Zeki Müren is complicated, and has only grown more so with the research I've done for this essay. It all tangles and tumbles in my brain day after day. Working on this, I've begun to dream of him again. Zeki, picking his way across broken concrete flooded with black water, wading through in high-heeled boots. In another, I climb a fence and found myself in the bedroom of his house museum. I catch a glimpse at the cologne bottles on his vanity. Will I finally know what scents he wore? In another, Zeki and I are lovers, swimming in the Mediterranean. In another, I am Zeki, in a garden at night, having my first sexual experience with a man.

I am stressed, crushed by anxiety most hours of the day. But for an hour, I look at pictures of Zeki Müren, peering into composed smiles, constructed tilts of his head and neck, and wonder what discomposure was behind them. I strain towards the screen, an anodyne haze settling over my mind. The next morning, I wake up feeling off. Some time after waking, I remember with a lurch that for a while, I didn't feel like myself; I projected so hard that I thought I became him, or someone who could know him. It was nice not to be me.

How did I even get in this far? My first impression of "Ah Bu Şarkıların Gözü Kör Olsun" was positive, but the obsession wasn't immediate. I was struck by the passion and the strength of Müren's voice, his dramatic delivery. The rest of his music was not so easy to get into it, not immediately. The older stuff shows its age: the recording is hazy, his voice is a bit too piercing. The stuff that sounds nice, from the 80s and 90s, is admittedly cheesy: weird synths, formulaic drum beats, predictable strains of strings. But it grew on me.

Once I was able to put aside hangups about cheesiness, the music spoke to me in its own right. The comforting sentimentality of "Gitme Sana Muhtacım," the crystal clarity of Zeki's Turkish. The brooding darkness of "Eskimeyen Dost," the delightful delivery of the line, "Kadere dur, dur, dur diyemedik," ("We couldn't tell fate to stop, stop, stop."), the "dur"s fluttering like a dove's wings, like love fading away. The irresistibly infectious opening of "Ben Zeki Müren," the impressive tongue-twisting of every line, the cheesy yet catchy clap sound effects that surround a lyrical mention of applause. The aching sensuality of "Yorgunum," the way Zeki's voice expands to fill every corner of that song.

However, I probably wouldn't have persisted in listening to Müren's music if I hadn't been intrigued in other ways. There was his status as an unspoken queer icon and unifying national figure, combined with what I will bluntly call a cringe aspect to his presentation -- the bouffant and heavy make up and hand dancing. Spencer Hawkins, in his excellent essay, "Queerly Turkish: Queer Masculinity and National Belonging in the Image of Zeki Müren" (which I am about to start referencing a LOT), put it well: "His uncanny resemblance to a style-conscious, middle-aged woman inspired my admiration for his courage." As someone with no confidence or courage, Zeki Müren's apparent comfort with his weird self and his admiring fan base were an alluring paradox.

In short, how could he get away with it? How could so many people love him when his queerness was so obvious and singular? How could he be such a weirdo and have such broad appeal?

I have done a lot of reading (recreationally, originally, not for this post) on the subject of Müren's paradoxical fame, and it's a lot more complicated than what's described by your average English-language queer website. I am no ethnomusicologist or sociologist or queer studies major, and I am just a white person with know firsthand knowledge of anything Turkish, so all I can do is convey as best as I can what I understand of the situation.

Too many English-language articles and blogs confidently assert a blatant falsehood: that Zeki Müren was out and proud. This is patently untrue. Müren never said he was gay. There were rumors, of course. On one occasion, described in ŞOKOPOP's 5th video, he addressed these rumors directly by saying he is known to have impregnated 5-10 women, all of whom got abortions.

Müren did have to face down a repressive society -- it wasn't an simple matter of Turkey being excited over this flamboyant, gender ambiguous singer. ŞOKOPOP relates the scandalized media response to Zeki's outlandish outfits and miniskirts, and also describes the story of gazino owner Fahrettin Aslan demanding that Zeki not wear a miniskirt on stage when the president was in the audience. Zeki refused to wear the pants he was offered, and said he would wear the outfit completely, or not at all. Once he was on the stage, sparkly, with his beautiful legs on full display, the president and his table were the ones to applaud first and loudest.

So, it was complicated, a battering of countervailing forces, and my first impression of this, that "Zeki Müren was so aggressively himself, and people loved him anyways, despite their hang ups and hatred," was wrong. Through all this research, I've come to realize that the universal appeal of his public identity was carefully crafted: a series of exchanges, compromises, and sacrifices that excused and justified the sequins and miniskirts and full face make up.

From the reading I've done, I think one can divide the economy of Zeki Müren's fame into a few categories.

Soothing and addressing anxieties around Turkey's identity

After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, after the Turkish War of Independence, Turkey was declared a Republic and embarked onto a new identity as a secular state. Foundational to the formation of a new Turkish identity was the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, especially the sweeping Atatürk reforms that aimed to "modernize"* and Westernize Turkey. Relevant to this particular inquiry are how these reforms affected culture: women were granted voting rights and equality, Turkish was to be written with the Western alphabet instead of in Arabic script, Arabic loanwords were replaced, Turkish men's hats were banned to encourage the wearing of Western hats -- and so on.

The result, as described in Umut Tümay Arslan's essay, "Sublime yet ridiculous: Turkishness and the cinematic image of Zeki Müren" is an "internalization of the historical East/West dichotomy," resulting in insecurities and cultural contradictions. Summarizing writers I can't read because I don't know Turkish, Arslan discusses Jale Parla's analysis that: "Westernization has generated a sense of fatherlessness[...]the sense of being deprived of tradition, and therefore[...]being made into an orphan." Arslan also adds in the analysis of Orhan Koçak, who "discussed Westernization as accepting to be a late-comer, being short of the grand model or ideal." Then there's the work of Turkish literary critic Nurdan Gürbilek, who "has explored the sexual anxieties accompanying Ottoman-Turkish literary modernization -- the anxiety of effeminization and castration, the anxiety of losing virility, and the anxiety of forever being frozen in childhood."

All this, in my understanding, amounts to a national identity that is strung between dichotomies -- East and West, "modern" and historical, dependent and independent, etc. Hawkins and Arslan argue that Zeki Müren's presentation and what he symbolized soothed or otherwise addressed these anxieties.

Hawkins draws connections to the not so cis and straight elements of Turkish history. There are the gender deviant behaviors of ancient Turkic "shamans"** who "demonstrated a 'feminist respect' for female occult by dressing and behaving like women." Then there are the zenne dancers of the Ottoman era (and the present day, of course): "cross-dressing male belly dancers who received sexual attention from their male audiences." In the second video I posted, a mustachioed man hands Zeki a red rose. Zeki receives it gracefully and sings to him -- a love song. A tender moment that, to my Western brain, feels like it has some obvious queer overtones and which, at a glance, seems to parallel the zenne dancer tradition.

Part of the push towards modernization and Westernization was an enforcement of heteronormative Western masculinity. But history is never entirely left behind, and, according to Hawkins, Müren's effeminate presentation, implied sexual deviance, and ambiguously gendered lyrics harken back, nostalgically, to the Ottoman era and before. At the same time, it wasn't unheard of for a man to pay special attention to his dress. Atatürk himself was known for designing his own outfits, which were neat as a pin and beautifully tailored. The Father of the Turks was a dandy (züppe); so maybe Zeki Müren's colorful suits and brooches aren't so strange after all.

Thus, Zeki Müren was threading a needle: flamboyant enough to reference a buried past, but masculine enough to fit into an acceptable, dandyish image of masculinity -- and a patriotic one at that. East and West, old and new at the same time, woven together, seemingly effortlessly.

Hawkins explains how Zeki Müren also appealed in unique ways to the national anxieties of women and men. For women who were still adjusting to their new role in society, he, affirmed "the arrival of femininity as a position so worthy of public presentation that a male performer would sacrifice his more securely established privilege to partake in it." Meanwhile, for men who struggled with new strictures on how they expressed their masculinity, "Müren performs Turkish masculinity while rendering it queer, unfamiliar, and less oppressive in its demand for conformity." I can see this in Zeki's sequined and beaded suit jackets in all colors -- a glittery fantasy of what masculinity could be.

Arslan argues that, in the films in which Müren starred, Turkish Art Music is elevated from its shameful, all-too-Eastern roots, to the stuff of concert halls and fancy Western dress, made so by a twining of Turkish and Western instruments and styles. In these films, where Zeki Müren typically plays an eponymous character with a beautiful voice, his singing unites people through radios and creates unified scenes in concert halls. As Arslan describes it: "Zeki's voice on the radio constructs the national-popular fantasy through devotion to a single voice in hospitals, taxis, private cars, prisons, taverns, and the homes of rich and poor alike." In short, Turkish Art Music and Zeki Müren are portrayed as something every Turk can agree on, a beating heart at the center of national identity.

And, as people say, life imitates art. It is clear, from listening to Müren's music, that there is a conscious effort to blend Western and Eastern styles (not just Turkish, but Egyptian too), to marry tradition and new technology. Traditional instruments meld with pianos, strings, and harps. Synths make an appearance, sometimes unbearably cheesy, sometimes irresistibly catchy, but always making a point of bringing the cutting edge into Turkish Art Music. Müren's music itself speaks to a desire to find that middle place that forms a new Turkish identity.

I'd like to reflect on Hawkins' statement that "It is easy to see how Müren's feminine appearance, musical virtuosity, melancholic songs, and often childlike, happy demeanor could have made him a timely figure of triumph over these fears." It took me a while to figure out my interpretation of this, but here it is: Zeki has a way of making effeminacy and happy innocence look like beautiful things, not shameful ones. It came to me as I watched his 1984 Bodrum concert: his smile as he bows and nods to the audience, as he sings, is beatific; his actions are graceful, the music is beautiful and he rouses the crowd into singing well-known verses. In every situation where he is placed among other people, he is larger than life: those colorful clothes, the bouffant, the make up. People seem small next to him, though he isn't that tall. Zeki carries it off with such style that I can imagine feeling that even if Turkey is everything the West thinks it is, maybe that's okay after all.

All this demonstrates to me why there is no Zeki Müren in the English-speaking West. It's because we don't need one. The English-speaking West is on top of the world, a machine gun of soft power and cultural hegemony. We in the US don't need a beloved musician to affirm and glorify our identity, to mollify our anxieties about our validity and history, to cathartically represent the subversive desires that aren't acceptable to acknowledge. This, I think, is part of why almost no one in the English-speaking West is interested in Müren: he serves a purpose that is uninteresting and unrelatable to us, even as he serves an essential function within Turkey.

Zeki Müren, the model citizen

Less complicated than all this talk about Turkish identity and Zeki's relationship to it is the public perception of Zeki Müren as a great musician, a "model citizen," and a "patriot."

Müren's musical accomplishments speak for themselves. Listen to any song and you'll notice the smoothness and power of his voice, his impressive range, his careful and clear enunciation (which makes singing along wonderfully easy). Hawkins mentions that he also had the ability to sing in "especially demanding musical modes (makam)", and the Zeki Müren Hotline states that was known for being one of the first people to use a handheld microphone during performances. Thus, his musical chops give him a lot of social latitude. Hawkins quotes sociologist Mehmet Ümit Necef: "Turks explain their admiration for these [gender deviant] artists by pointing to their artistic talent and to the fact that nearly all artists are crazy and strange."

However, according to Arslan, Müren's "good Turkish" is even more important to his image than the music. Arslan says, that his diction, which was specifically "İstanbul Turkish," "had a kind of mythical status with its superior and elegant quality. This is the sublime part of Zeki Müren's image. He is the voice, he is the language itself."

She then quotes Martin Stokes (in a paper I don't have access to), who explains that "Zeki Müren's 'good Turkish' was a, if not the, crucial component of his high prestige," because of its connotations of "class, status, and prestige," as well as "empathy with the goals of Atatürk's revolution. In Turkey, as elsewhere, language was the master signifier of the modernist revolution, evoking clarity, functional communicative efficiency, democracy, and, of course, ethnic homogeneity."

I'd had a sneaking suspicion about this before receiving confirmation from the scholar. You see people talking about this in the comments section of just about every Zeki Müren Youtube video ever. They talk with admiration and longing about his elegance, his politeness, and the fact that no one talks like him anymore. These comments have a fervor that felt like it was imparted by national pride and ideals.

There are instances of these nationalist ideals being tied with atrocity. The Republic of Turkey has a history of trying to erase ethnic minorities, especially the Kurds, in the name of national unity. In 1924, a new Turkish constitution denied the Kurds autonomy, and there has been a long history of rebellions, massacres, resettlements, and erasure, even banning, of cultural practices and the Kurdish language.

And so, it is with a familiar dread that I acknowledge that, yes, a queer fav of mine played a part in exactly the sort of thing I hate: implicitly supporting and upholding racist, nationalist ideals.

It is not likely Müren ever publicly shared an opinion on this issue. He remained staunchly apolitical, even with friends. The Zeki Müren Hotline shares a quote from a private interview with a friend: "He never said which political party he favored. When asked which soccer team he supported, he would joke and say, 'I support my own balls!'"

Nonetheless, he represented Turkish pride, and generally showed support for the Turkish military, having spent time in its ranks during his mandatory military service. Upon his death, he left half his wealth to Mehmetçik Vakfı, and organization serving Turkish military veterans and their families. He was also publicly religious, mentioning Allah on stage (and in interviews, from what I can understand), and, according to Zeki Müren Hotline, "dial[ing] down or cancell[ing] his shows during religious holidays."

This apolitical-yet-nationalist appearance is, I think, key to his success and lasting legacy. That way, he could be something almost everyone agreed on. And, even now, his face is used as a symbol of unity. A caller to the Zeki Müren Hotline mentions seeing his face on a sign at an LGBTQ+ rally: "I asked Zeki Müren, he told me to resist!" As this call plays, other pro LGBTQ+ signs with Zeki's face flash in the background. Hawkins discusses the use of Müren as a symbol by the HDP, a pro-Kurdish political party that made a successful bid to win parliamentary representation in 2015. Social media ads appeared with a comedy actor saying, "So, is Zeki Müren voting for the HDP too?" referencing the "So, will Zeki Müren hear/see us too?" joke

Thus, Zeki Müren, who represented unity, and in doing so, implicitly represented elitism, nationalism, and racism, is also used by oppressed groups to represent a different, more diverse sort of unity.

That being said, there are plenty who feel that Müren didn't do enough with his prestige. He never publicly advocated for queer rights, never donated money to LGBTQ+ causes (as pointedly mentioned by a caller to the Zeki Müren Hotline), never spoke publicly about his identity, and denied any queerness on multiple occasions.

I get the disappointment. I also understand the way Zeki was a beacon to queer people who didn't have a name for what they felt. One caller to the Zeki Müren Hotline mentions the childhood feeling that, "There is only me, Zeki Müren, and Bülent Ersoy in the whole world." Both feelings are valid. However, as I am about to describe, Zeki's ambiguity about his sexuality and gender was part of a delicate balancing act that kept him acceptable to Turkish society.

Secrecy & Sacrifice

One of the callers to the Zeki Müren Hotline tells this story:

"In the early 2000s, I was a student in the Netherlands. One day, we were watching an old Zeki Müren film and a Spanish friend entered the room. He stared at the screen for a few seconds and then asked: 'Isn't this guy gay? Why is he flirting with that woman?' And we said, in Turkey, we don't ask those types of questions."

This is an important starting point: there are some questions that, historically speaking, Turks didn't want to ask.

Still, there were tabloids, nosy people, people who wanted to make fun. Zeki Müren defended his masculinity whenever confronted with questions and doubts. From Hawkins and ŞOKOPOP I've gathered the main talking points of a piece Müren wrote when the press got into a frenzy about his miniskirts in the late 1960s. Hawkins describes how Müren claimed "that he would not cross-dress if it did not please his audiences," a cheeky wink that says, "I dress this way because you like it, you weirdos." A quote, I suspect from the same essay, appears in Ecenur Güvendik's paper, "An Analysis of the Problems [sic] Zeki Müren's and Bülent Ersoy's Queer Masculinity/Femininity Performances." Müren says, "If women wear trousers, does this mean they are all going to have sex-change operations too?...I don't wear women's clothes, I wear the kind of clothes Caesar, and Baytekin, and Brutus wore." This quote conflates the Turkish push towards modernity with the past, pointing out that gender norms have changed throughout history. If women are now wearing pants, why shouldn't men wear miniskirts? Men once wore togas, tunics, and baltea, after all. (However, I don't think most men in history had get up quite as cunty as Zeki's historical costume-- which, by the way, he designed and sewed himself.)

(While it's not totally relevant, I must reference other points from this piece, especially the line "If I did not trust my beauty, I would not expose my legs," followed by claims that his legs were more beautiful and symmetrical than those of footballers and basketballers. He also insisted that his outfits and underwear were carefully designed so as to "not disturb the visual pleasure of my audience.")

Zeki even, according to his friend, Göksenin Çakmak, defended his masculinity with violence if pushed. In this interview, he describes an incident that occurred when they were driving to Bodrum. A boy of about 15 spotted them and shouted, "Hey, sister Zeki!" Müren commanded Göksenin to put the car in reverse, got out of the car, grabbed the boy by the ear, said, "I fuck your mother! Now who are you calling sister?" and slapped him twice. As the boy ran away, Zeki shouted, "Now go tell your mother about your sister!"

It is also worth mentioning Zeki Müren's long feud with Bülent Ersoy -- which was covered by ŞOKOPOP. The roots of this rivalry are unclear. While Bülent Ersoy claims that it was because they both fell in love with the same man, a gazino owner, a lot of it doubtless had to do with Ersoy being a rising star when Müren was waning in popularity. At one point, Ersoy accused Müren of being a homosexual. He mentioned all those impregnations and abortions, and said some truly transmisogynist shit about how women's emotions are regulated through their periods, and Ersoy, by not having periods, is therefore angry and moody.

Güvendik describes how Ersoy has leaned into homophobia and conservatism before the Turkish press "to save her professional life." In the same way, Müren leaned into transphobia to justify his own flamboyant existence, separating himself from the supposed irrationality and bizarre biology of transwomen.

Zeki Müren and Bülent Ersoy did make up in the end. They were secretly invited to a gazino on the same night, and after some kerfuffle with the seating, Ersoy went up to the stage and kissed Müren's hand. They sang together and then kissed several times. (Something about this makes me deeply emotional. The sweetness and excitement of it all, the two of them apparently giddy to bury the hatchet while also looking fabulous and beautiful.) The press, of course, came out with a whole slop of transphobia and homophobia. Zeki's response? He said that it is virtue to kiss a beautiful woman, and commended Ersoy as a woman and successful artist. Thus, while complimenting Ersoy, he also presents himself as a straight man.

Hawkins, referencing Eser Selen (whose work I can't access), describes how Zeki Müren's "queer tendencies onstage" are permitted by the fact that he is in the closet, Selen calls this exchange a "work of sacrifice." To be allowed to be flamboyant and gender ambiguous, he "sacrificed his queer subjectivity offstage" -- he had to stay in the closet, and his private life had to be very private. Hawkins makes a connection to Cuneyt Cakirlar's analysis that this "work of sacrifice" is "a masochism in which Müren invites the Turkish public to take sadistic pleasure."

Indeed, as Hawkins points out, the lyrics to most Zeki Müren songs center around loss and longing. Looking at the popular Zeki Müren songs on Spotify, a few leap out: "Gitme Sana Muhtacim" literally means "Don't Go, I Need You," and is an extended plea for a lover not to leave, ending with Zeki reading out the lyrics in a desperate voice, as if he was begging on his knees. "Ah Bu Şarkıların Gözü Kör Olsun (Ah, Damn These Songs)" details a troubled relationship, perhaps at the point of break up, that presumably has been held together by ideals of love in love songs. "Elbet Birgün Buluşacağız (Surely We Will Meet Again)" is from the perspective of one whose lover has died. And, of course, there is the 30 minute epic, "Kahir Mektubu (Letter of Sorrow)," which contains the hauntingly sung chorus (translation by Gürsoy Doğtaş):

"Her gece kederdeyim
Durmadan içiyorum
Sevda ektim kalbime

Yalnızlık biçiyorum"

"Every night I grieve,

I drink all the time.

I sowed love in my heart,

Now I reap loneliness."

Hawkins, referencing other scholars, summarizes that this "abjection lets Müren register Turkish fears of inadequacy and exhibit his punishment for his gender deviance." It would not be permissible for Müren to sing of romantic joy, much as how media in the West often feels the need to deny LGBTQ+ characters a happy ending. Diverse gender and sexuality can exist, but only if it is paid for with suffering, which often doubles as masochistic trauma porn.

Müren's status was the result of a complex web of cultural association and sacrifices paid to heteronormative society. He navigated this web well, but we can never really know what toll it took on him personally.

The song above is "Ben Zeki Müren," the title of which translates to "I, Zeki Müren." The tone of it is a bit hard to describe -- somewhere between a mission statement, bragging, and gratitude for his audience. Here's a decent translation if you want to see for yourself -- and, while you're at it, take a moment to appreciate how impossibly tongue twister-y the lyrics and rhyming scheme are. The climax of the song (at least for me), is the verse:

"Şarkılara duygu seren
Çilelere göğüs geren
Dertli gönüllere giren
Işte benim Zeki Müren"

"The one who puts emotion in songs,

The one who endures ordeals,

The one who enters suffering hearts,

It is I, Zeki Müren."

I have noticed that a lot of people seem to love the words spoken at the end. In photos of the Zeki Müren Art Museum, you can see this little poem hanging on the walls, calligraphed and cross-stitched. There's even the example of the film Arif v 216, in which Çağlar Çorumlu impersonates Zeki Müren beautifully (the gestures and body language and voice are just perfect, and the costume is also accurate to one from real life). At 5:16 in this clip, he steps into the spotlight to say:

"Kimsesizlerin kimsesiyim; kimsesizim

Yalnızların yalnızıyım; yalnızım

Dertlilerin dertlisiyim; dertliyim

Aşıkların aşkıyım; aşıkım

Ismim Mesut, göbek adım Bahtiyar

Yıllarca hep böyle bildiniz siz;

Mesut Bahtiyardan şarkılar dinlediniz."

"More desolate than the most desolate; I am desolate,

More lonely than the most lonely; I am lonely,

More plaintive than the most plaintive; I am plaintive,

The love of the lovers; I am in love.

My name is Mesut (happy) my middle name is Bahtiyar (joyful)

That is how you knew me for years

You have listened to songs from Mesut Bahtiyar."

What's striking to me about these declarations after all my research is how Müren identifies himself with the abjection and melancholy that are so consistent in his music. In being the purveyor of certain emotions, he becomes that emotion more than any other, as if he is the Platonic Form of suffering, loneliness, and desolation. But he is happy performing this service for others.

The (official?) music video that accompanies this is an interesting watch. First, a bunch of clips, many from movies, of Zeki Müren, mostly in suits, singing, getting off a plane, sharing meaningful looks with women, offering them roses, kissing them. A glamorous life full of straight romance. Then -- cut to Zeki Müren in full-fledged gender ambiguity: sequins, full face make up, bouffant, and smoky eye, his ring-covered hands dancing. Zeki has changed over the years, gotten more colorful, more effeminate, and yet we still love him.

The hand dancing is always entrancing to me. It feels so precise, every motion so practiced it's become effortless. I love how he moves. In almost every video, from movies to concert recordings to interviews to weird little promo videos, he is so graceful. Every tilt of his head, every hand gesture, the measured clarity of his voice, feels so careful and considered. I've never seen him stumble over his words. He was good at tongue twisters. Meanwhile, I bumble through life, bumping into and knocking over every object in a 5 foot vicinity, stumbling constantly over my words, fumbling my way through social situations and rotting with anxiety afterwards. How does he do it? I wish I was like him. I sit in front of the screen and imitate his mannerisms, practicing for a grace I'll never acquire.

But at the same time, I peer at the videos, hoping for a moment that the façade drops. After all, we only get to see the public-facing Zeki Müren. Part of what makes him so fascinating is the fact that this graceful, calm, friendly, beneficent act can't have been what Zeki was like all the time. Every video where he does something like jump and squeal in excitement (there was a video of a concert where he did this but I can't find it any more), or where he gets sweaty and mops his brow, making a joke, or where someone is feeding him cake on stage (?????), or where he can be seen performing a song impromptu at a party in someone's backyard is like finding a buried treasure.

In the comments section of an interview video on Youtube, someone wonders if Zeki Müren ever got angry, saying (according to Youtube's translate feature): "He has such a soft heart, such a sensitive personality that he is afraid of hurting people. I cannot find words to describe Zeki Müre [sic]. He is an indescribable person." The thread that follows is a mixture of people saying of course he never got angry, some people saying that, of course he did, everyone gets angry, and others bringing up rumors: that tavern owners in Bodrum said he was foul-mouthed and angry, that he had connections with the mafia, that he had a physical altercation with Fahrettin Aslan, the owner of a gazino Müren performed at. One person remarks: "I think he looks calm in front of the camera. He must be killing people behind the scenes."

So, I'm not the only one who feels compelled to attempt peeling open Müren's soft, shiny outer layer. He is too perfect, too gentle, talented, and graceful, and the question of his private life, his queerness, and where his human impulses went, is deeply tantalizing.

This is where I must insert a warning: I found what I was looking for in ŞOKOPOP's video series on Zeki Müren, all the gossip and scandals and quirky life choices and I don't know what to do with it. It was enriching for me, deeply intriguing and entertaining, but how am I to draw conclusions that will interest other people? I don't know! So I'll just ramble, and you can decide your level of engagement with this question: What kind of person was Zeki Müren, actually?

ŞOKOPOP relates how Zeki was a shy, bespectacled child who can't play sports for fear of breaking his glasses. His parents, particularly his father, seem to have been disappointed in their son. One day, he earned a certificate acknowledging his inclusion in the honor roll in school. He brought this home, excited to show his father, only to find him sitting and drinking rakı, as usual. Zeki's father didn't care about his son's accomplishment, and told him to go get some more rakı. Zeki said he couldn't forget the red clogs he wore that day, his father's indifference to him, and the aniseed smell of rakı, which he couldn't stand for the rest of his life. His parents weren't overly supportive of his decision to pursue a career in music, and he had to rely on help from a patron to get musical training.

So, the superstar's childhood is narratively perfect, almost predictable -- if we wish to simplify something that was surely more nuanced and which we can't know much about. A lack of support, attention, and affection, led him to seek acknowledgement elsewhere. He had a beautiful voice, and he used it, and all of Turkey loved him. I do think that our culture's present obsession with childhood trauma as a cause for everything can flatten such narratives, but let's grant that there's likely some relation.

Even early on in my obsession, I had a feeling take Zeki Müren was a bit full of himself. There's a story that, when he visited the USA in the 60s, he declared that he wanted to teach Frank Sinatra to sing "alaturka," which is a charming notion, if rather cocky. Did Sinatra ask to be taught? His style was clearly serving him just fine. Well, this singing lesson never happened, though Zeki did apparently get to meet with and teach Mick Jagger in the 70s.

There's a story from his friend, Göksenin Çakmak, that confirms, in my mind, an arrogant streak. The two of them were on a beach together, when Zeki went up to a heterosexual couple and grabbed the man's genitals through his Speedo, saying, "In Türkiye, only I am allowed to do this, no one else is allowed."

He asked the man, "Sir, are you angry?"

"No," said the man.

He asked the woman, "Madam, are you angry?"

She quipped, "No, Mr. Zeki, I hold it every day, you hold it sometimes."

As much as this story cracks me up, I have to admit it involves Zeki wielding his power in a genuinely creepy way. Even if the man consented to being fondled on the beach, there's a power imbalance at play, and Zeki was treating this man as a prop to prove a point: that he, with his fame and skills and sacrifices, was allowed to have sexual contact with men, even in public.

On the other hand, there are details that hint at a deep insecurity, self-obsession's dark reflection. One of the accounts lending credibility to the theory that Zeki Müren faked a heart attack in 1980 is that of Muzaffer Özpınar, Zeki's composer. According to him, Zeki said one night, after a gazino performance, that more tables had been empty than last night. "I will commit suicide," he said.

From this, I get an impression of someone who was attached to his fame, who fed off the attention and adulation of his audience. Now that a new star was rising and he was no longer the artist who paid the most taxes (which is how popularity is measured in Turkey, apparently), he was hurting. Rather than committing suicide, he either suffered a heart attack or he feigned a heart attack to be free from the burden of those empty tables. In an odd little press conference in his house, Zeki said that he wouldn't be performing regularly because, "I paid my price with my heart, unfortunately. My heart is tired and my doctors said that this event comes from the stress of the scene that lasts for 25 years. And I said goodbye to the stage…I gave my heart. I bought a lot but I gave my heart."

Even if the heart attack was a lie, there was something to his words: Özpınar's statement makes it sound like Zeki's identity was tied up with fame, success, the warmth of the crowd's love. And given that it was a heart attack that killed him, these words are prescient -- but more on that later.

Unlike some commenters on Youtube, I am ready to believe Zeki was an angry person. If Göksenin Çakmak is to be believed, he literally demanded that the car be thrown into reverse so he could slap and curse at a teenager.

Çakmak also tells a story of how a love triangle resulted in violence. Zeki was in a relationship with a younger man named Mustafa, a meteorologist whose education he paid for. Mustafa was at the same time in a relationship with a female pop star. Through a ploy, Zeki caught them in a hotel room together (apparently Mustafa was hiding on the balcony under a blanket lol). Mustafa slapped Zeki, Zeki slapped him back, then grabbed the pop star's hair and slapped her twice, until her mouth was bleeding. As it turns out, this pop star may have been Ajda Pekkan. Ajda and Zeki performed together and were friends for a time in the 70s, and according to Çakmak they had to go smile for photographs shortly after this incident.

Zeki later snubbed Ajda Pekkan, turning her away after the 1980 heart attack, then seeing someone else and taking photos with her -- which appeared in tabloids. Such coldness makes sense after what happened with Mustafa, but it seems to have been fairly typical for Zeki. According to an article I read (which I SWEAR was up literally two days ago, but the link now leads to a 404), he had his servant(s) answer the phone and door, and would tell them when to lie and say he was away, even when he was being called upon by friends. But doesn't that make sense when you've been betrayed by friends, and when the press and all of Turkey is always up in your business?

Then there's the long feud with trans pop star Bülent Ersoy, during which Zeki couldn't seem to contain himself during interviews and denigrated her, accusing her of being jealous of him, spouting outright transphobia. Those are some ugly moments, some signs of anger and jealousy and self-obsession -- why couldn't Zeki share the stage? After 20+ years of being the center of attention, was there no space for someone else?

It's impossible to know what was going on in Zeki's head during any of this, but the Ersoy feud reminds me of the wild, backed-into-a-corner anger that can come of being in the closet and fighting to stay there for your survival. When I was in 8th grade, rumors were flying about me being a dyke. According to a friend, I had a horrible argument with a friend where he called me a dyke and I called him a faggot. I have no memory of this. I don't think either of us really knew what we were at the time, but I turned out to be bisexual and agender, he turned out to be gay, and there we were both fighting to stay in the closet so as to not get eaten by the piranhas (middle-schoolers in the 2000s), hurting each other in the process.

So yeah, what about Zeki's sexuality? Well, according to Çakmak, Zeki Müren was not only bisexual, but also a ho (affectionate). Çakmak says, "There was no woman or man he wasn't with," and says he slept with politicians, businessmen, models, and even a prime minister, that he was engaged to a male model for three months, then broke up with him because his feet smelled. Maybe it is true that he paid for all those abortions.

I'm not one to slut shame. Honestly, I find this compelling -- that the model citizen, so careful and polite and proper in public, also presumably liked to have a lot of sex with all sorts of people. I love that people found him and his gender ambiguity hot. Learning this made me start finding him hot too, which I hadn't been experiencing previously.

I'll relate another juicy story from Çakmak: Zeki was staying at a hotel in Antalya. In the room next to his was a heterosexual couple on their honeymoon. After wishing them happiness, Zeki sat in the moonlight for a while and the groom spoke to him (from their balcony? Hard to tell), saying, "Mr. Zeki, today is my wedding night. I admire you, I want to be with you. We will leave here tomorrow, I can never find you again, please." And so Zeki slept with him, and presumably they never saw each other again.

This story is so striking to me. Something about the poeticism of the moonlight, the two ships passing in the night, a man expressing a part of himself that may never again have an outlet, and Zeki allowing himself to be the conduit for that. Zeki Müren, iconic shape of a buried identity, a forbidden desire, a way of life that was unachievable to most, consents to share part of himself with a fan who has just committed himself to a life of heteronormativity. Of course, in an interview in 1988, Zeki claimed he never slept with the many men who left their marriages out of love for him.

Another one of Çakmak's stories feels like it fits in right next to this one. Zeki was in a relationship with a pilot lieutenant, and "[b]oth of them decide to commit suicide because they think it is not possible for them to continue their lives this way and they cannot live their happiness." They decided to drive off a cliff in Şile, but, at the last moment, the pilot lieutenant slammed on the brakes and they didn't go off the edge. Çakmak claims that this incident was the inspiration for the song "Hayat Bazen Tatlıdır," the lines, "Life is sweet sometimes/Lovers have wings," meaning this happened sometime before 1962.

It breaks my heart that even Zeki Müren, queer but beloved Zeki Müren, angry and unkind Zeki Müren, didn't feel he could live as himself, that he almost died for it. I'm glad he didn't die then -- he had so many years of good music and wonderful outfits ahead of him. I can't help but wonder if this event, and ones like it, led to or intensified that anger and coldness. After all, he never quite got out from under the pall of cis/heteronormativity, he could never be open about his identity. Did he ever become comfortable with that? Or did the hurt remain? What would it have meant to be fully Zeki Müren?

We'll never know, but still I wonder, and mourn a little, and think how much this remains the case today, and how it feels like queer liberation is receding into the distance again. A little mystery is at the root of a good obsession for me, and it doesn't matter much to me if Zeki Müren really was an angry, arrogant, and sometimes frightening person -- it makes for a compelling puzzle if anything.

Even through the gossip, the veil of secrecy, and picking through the obscurities of another language, some charming details stick out. One is that the last house he lived in, which became a museum, is shockingly modest for a nationally beloved star. The photos of the museum show what looks like a queen size bed, a bit dinky for two people if he was indeed living with a male lover, a rather cramped bedroom, some charmingly bland floor tiles in the entrance hall, a sitting room with two TVs pointed in different directions on mismatched furniture, a kitchen with not much more counter space than I have and a ridiculously small dining table -- and so on. The fanciest thing about this house is that it looks out onto the harbor, and I'm not sure Zeki got to enjoy much of that view because apparently he was only able to inhabit the bottom floor at the end of his life. It does not feel built to order, it feels like he moved into a house and made it work, like anyone would.

All that from a man who projected opulence and fabulousness. One caller to the Zeki Müren Hotline remembered seeing an album cover (the website suggests this one -- which I own btw 💪) that made him think that Müren was the richest man in Turkey. He certainly was rich, but didn't live like it.

Another wonderful thing I've noticed about Zeki Müren is that his passion for the music, and his connection to audiences, feels real. Watching his 1984 Bodrum concert is where it really hit me. He tends to every side of the stage, looking out to the audience, smiling. His voice is so powerful and fine-tuned, and he sweeps around with what feels like genuine pleasure. He gets the crowd to sing verses, he laughs a laugh that verges on a cackle, a strand of hair comes loose from his bouffant and falls over his forehead. He sits quietly and thoughtfully while other musicians perform solos, indicating when to listen, when to clap, and then sings so powerfully, pulling the mic away and bringing it close again. He rises to his feet and dances. Photographers and people with gifts swarm the stage, and though he is the center of attention, he handles it gracefully, dancing with the roses he was given, holding some small, shiny trinket he was given as he poses for photos. The crowd, tightly packed, seems enraptured.

It's a beautiful concert, but ŞOKOPOP mentions a painful piece of context: that Zeki lost 13 kilos (approximately 29 pounds) to fit into his outfits. In fact, Zeki's weight and how people felt about it was a bigger part of the story than I'd anticipated and, to my mind, the pressure on him to diet and look thin was just another way that the public constrained and abused his body.

Before I get further into this, I would like to make my views clear: I reject fatphobia completely. I reject the unscientific notion that it is healthier to be skinny and that being fat is necessarily unhealthy. Dieting doesn't work, weight cycling is bad for you, ideals about skinny bodies are rooted in racism, and even if common notions about fatness were at all true, someone's appearance and health is no one's business but their own. There are no moral implications to healthiness or unhealthiness and fatness or skinniness. No one should have to perform penitence for their genetics.

The incidents that ŞOKOPOP describes are familiar to me as a citizen of the US, the country of tabloids and paparazzo obsessed with baby bumps, bikini photos, Ozempic face, and Jessica Simpson's "mom jeans." In the early 1980s (1982?), Zeki Müren had a concert in Bodrum. The focus was not on his fantastical outfits or his singing, but on the fact that he looked fat. He was said to weigh 110 kilos.

So, he flew to a clinic in the US and lost 15 kilos. In his appearances at the 1983 Bodrum concert and the TRT New Years' program, he looks trim. But, as mentioned above, by 1984, he's dieting again. This 1984 promo video, which is a sort of "day in the life," makes explicit mention of Müren's dieting and workout routine (which, of course, he does with his bouffant and make up in place).

I'm sure a lot of this dieting and concern with Zeki's appearance continued through the 80s, even if ŞOKOPOP doesn't mention it. After all, there is an incident as late as 1995, after Zeki had retired from public life, where he was photographed looking fat in public and the press had a field day. Of course, Zeki called up the evening news to say, "I have started a strict diet. With Allah's permission, when I get rid of my weight, I will take place in front of my dear listeners and viewers again. I have diabetes but I am solving this problem with insulin. My fans should be a little more patient."

I am struck by the penitence of this statement, as if he owes it to his fans to be skinny, even at the age of ~63, even after retiring from public life. Obviously that attitude of entitlement to celebrities' bodies is common enough to the US, but I suspect that, in Turkey, the feeling is heightened by Müren's status as a symbol of national identity. Just as his accomplishments in acting and music pacified Turkey's anxieties about its conflicted national identity, any perceived issues with his body must therefore represent a cultural failing.

Not that that excuses any of this treatment. If we run with the notion that Zeki sustained off fame and adoration, one can only imagine the pain these criticisms, the media circus centered around his body, caused him. We're all familiar with how people tend to regain weight after diets -- there's plenty of theories about why this happens, but it may just be how the human body responds to starvation. Zeki's weight cycling likely increased his risk for cardiovascular disease -- so I wonder if the heart attack that killed him was related to his crash diets.

People learned to be comfortable with Zeki Müren's gender ambiguity and sparkly clothes, but such a person couldn't be allowed to be fat. Zeki got fame, he got the adoration of the crowd, but he was limited in what he could be, harangued for stepping out of line. I wonder if he was in pain from it, if that is part of how he gave his heart.

At the same time, I find myself thinking about the transcendent properties of fame, of having a persona -- as a person who is afraid of both. Let's run with the idea, for a moment, that Zeki was at least kind of a dick. But as a public figure, he was polite, so gentle that no one could imagine him being angry. A line from one of the calls to the Zeki Müren Hotline sticks with me: "His whole life...not once did he turn his back to the audience. Can you imagine someone so polite?" This is demonstrably untrue. You can see him turning his back to the audience in multiple concert recordings -- to walk to the rear of the stage, for example. But it kind of feels true anyways, like the sentiment of it is true. In concerts and New Years' Eve broadcasts and so on, he smiles and wishes his audience health and happiness, for everything they wish for to come true. He was kind to the masses below the stage, on the other side of the screen; metaphorically, he never turned from them.

A surprising number of the callers documented on the Zeki Müren Hotline website seemingly called just to talk about their woes -- in love, or in the face of a recent bombing. They lean on Zeki as if he were a personal confidant. His songs of melancholy are comforting, cathartic, they are there in hard times, and his unchanging image is comforting too, inspirational. To me, he is a warm, hazy ghost, a colorful angel that I can conjure in my mind for comfort.

I've realized that the gap between Zeki Müren's glittery image and his actual human self is a large part of my fascination. At first, I wanted to know Zeki could be so beloved. Now that I know more, I am intrigued by the notion that one could be troubled, unkind, petty, and angry, but create an image and art that helps others. I'm not talking about death of the artist. I don't feel the need to distance myself from Zeki's flaws. Partly because he is dead, and can no longer profit from attention. Partly because a lot of those flaws make sense to me. Partly because I hate myself, and wish that I, with all my flaws, could give off such a glow.

As I approach the end of this post, as I am mired contemplations about fame and the sacrifices Zeki made for it, I must discuss the possibility that his death in a studio, after receiving an award for his achievements, may have been intentional. As ŞOKOPOP documents, Zeki Müren's lawyer claimed that Zeki stopped taking all of his 38 medications on the day of the ceremony to "invite death." Zeki's adopted son, however, says he didn't believe this to be true. It is worth mentioning that this was documented by TRT, perhaps in the interest of making them seem less liable for Zeki's death. Either way, an audio recording from shortly before his death shows that Zeki had suicide on his mind. He imagines being in a film again, playing the role of a composer who commits suicide because he is haunted by a great love affair from the past. "Are you amazed?" he says. "No. Suicide is also a big deal. It takes strength, it takes courage. The life Allah has given must surely be taken by Allah. But it is a rebellion, a revolt. If a person considers the number of years he has lived to be enough, he may as well end his life."

Was it the death he hoped for? When he felt his heart giving out, what did he feel? If it was what he wanted, I feel glad for him. Perhaps fame is hollow, perhaps it is not. Perhaps the need for fame was what killed him. I only wish I knew what he found in it, and whether he realized what it meant to him when he was retired in Bodrum, "listening to oneself."

All this searching to find out what kind of person of Zeki Müren was, and of course I can never know. Realizing that I can auto-translate Youtube videos is a fantastic discovery that will surely keep me occupied with my own personal School of Zeki Müren studies for years to come, but I've realized that I've been focusing on a vanishing point. The more I learn, the more I want to know. I get glimpses of points in time -- suicide attempts, slaps, snubs, successes -- but what I wish for is to know the connective tissue between them, the thoughts and feelings that led him from one point to another. I want to know what food he liked, whether it was nice to sit with him and look upon the waters of the Mediterranean. I want to know what he was like when he was upset, grumpy, ugly, hadn't eaten enough. Did the measured sweetness of his voice disappear? I want to know what he looked like without hairspray, what he dreamed about, whether he missed his pilot lover or if it the whole thing wasn't so serious as it seemed at the time. I want, in short, to prove that such a person could be a human, like me. But, at the end of the day, he kept much of himself hidden from the world, willingly or not, and at some point I have to start being myself again.

I find it appropriate to end with one last video, the sort which will only be loved and understood by those who have become true aficionados. If you can't watch Zeki sing and look emotional on a boat and feel absolutely besotted, then maybe this isn't for you. Thank you for making it to the end of this post anyways. However you feel, go out into the world with the last stanza of "Merhaba Canim" by queer poet Arkadaş Zekai Özger (translation a mixture of that provided by r/umudjan on Reddit and Zeki Müren Hotline):

"and someday, without you noticing,

my body, growing towards the sun and manhood,

will fall from your hands and

one day for sure

1 comment:

hansgruvrJune 25, 2025 at 1:40 PM
I feel like if I had the capacity to be half as demure and glamorous as Zeki, I would have never questioned my gender. His voice is heavenly, I do think he could have taught Sinatra a thing or two with a voice lesson, honestly, and that's coming from a lifelong Sinatra fan. "Ben Zeki Müren" had me slithering about the room.

I thoroughly enjoyed learning more about him through your words!

Lyra Meurer's Writing Blog

Thursday, June 19, 2025

Unpacking My Obsession with Zeki Müren, a Queer Turkish Icon

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