tajna tanović

"They are flying, they are still on their way,

The words of love and release.

I feel that uneasiness that comes before a poem,

And my lips are cold as ice.

..."

- Miss Gorenko

“I’m listening to the distant, beautiful voice from the other side of the vast water which sings: “I Think of You”. It is a secret (‘Tajna’), who Tajna is thinking of, who she is really calling upon on her first independent EP album recently recorded in New York. I won’t ask anything; it is unmannerly to stir up maiden delicateness such as longing and love. Still, while she’s singing I can see and hear Tagore on the shore of the holy Ganges River; his hair is becoming gray and in his solitary thoughts he is listening to the message from the other world. It is evening, he speaks, then harkens for someone might call him even though it is late. “Vigilantly I watch to see whether young, lascivious hearts meet, whether two pairs of yearning eyes beg for music, to stop their silence and speak for them.” Here the Indian Nobel Prize winner Rabindranath, who has never stopped speaking, ceases, and the young Bosnian begins, who in song has broken the silence and is just getting ready to speak for she has a lot to say.
[...]
Thus I’m listening to the girl from Sarajevo across the Atlantic and to the gray-haired Tagore from almost a century ago. A duet similar in its wisdom, kindness, grace and the wish to vigilantly watch and sing for somewhere there are two lonely human hearts that need their word.
The duet seems to me happy and melancholy [...].”

- Mišo Marić, Bosanska Pošta, January 2012

Read the original article & more press

Beneath the ancient trees
from which supposedly criminals were hanged.
Above the potter’s field bones stripped clean of their histories,
a haunting voice rising in the night
to lift me beyond my daily rush through.
It is easy to continue on without stopping,
we pass so much of life not realizing it is our own.
The crowds always continue to gather,
more difficult to accept a solitary encounter. 
Straw hatted in the May heat, 
cowboy boots creating a beat in the urban refuge, 
an alluring, golden velvet sheathed mystery,
able to halt time,
create a passageway into the eternal.
The promise of her lilting sounds 
rising from some inner depth.
Unsure of her origins, 
arriving from somewhere thousands of miles to the east.
Beneath the green canopy of lush memory
providing a vehicle for moving inside.
Recalling distant languages, 
you ride on Joyce’s words.
A reminder that the magical does occupy our quotidian space, 
almost as if Jung’s words could dance.
all of history could be contained in a song.
It is easy to rush past moments
which might attach themselves to you,
come to grow into human forms,
slight smiles that turn into embraces
if only you were able to allow your self pleasure.
Difficult to halt time,
ascend along its arc of ecstasy.
As travelers, we pass along circuitous roads
unsure of our destination,
uncertain as to even our location,
it is easy to miss the landmarks 
which supposedly serve as our guides.
In the vast sea, 
the wind breathes as a voice,
Ahab discerned its disturbing messages.
I offer up some meager token, 
believing it might buy me some redemption
as the darkness claims us.

My soulmates, born under the same planet, the moon, they gave birth to secrets! Two gentlemen & two ladies, Kafka & Kieślowski, Ingeborg & June, a source of permanent inspiration...

“Now the Sirens have a still more fatal weapon than their song, namely their silence...
Someone might possibly have escaped from their singing; but from their silence,
certainly never.”
- Franz Kafka, "The Silence of the Sirens" (October 1917)

Ingeborg Bachmann

(1956)

Schatten Rosen Schatten

Unter einem fremden Himmel
Schatten Rosen
Schatten
auf einer fremden Erde
zwischen Rosen und Schatten
in einem fremden Wasser
mein Schatten

Shadows roses shadows

Underneath a strange sky
shadows roses
shadows
on a strange earth
between roses and shadows
in a strange water
my shadow

(translated by T. T.)

Maybe because I was exposed to his music early on when growing up, and so it grew on me, but more so because listening to Scott Walker made me realize for the first time the meaning and effect of music.

My father was obsessed with Scott & The Walker Brothers and he passed it on. Like an old story passed around for generations. From voice to voice to voice.

I picked it up, soaked it in, like a sponge.

An unbelievable singer, writer, performer, a true artist. Like a father to me... I could always come back to when I needed a shoulder to lean on, a word of advice, someone to listen, to dry my tears...

Most importantly he taught me that in the end all that counts is good music, quality above all.

This is not an analysis or presentation, merely a modest hommage if you want.

...an inspiration, "killed by too strong a word" - poet Branko Miljković:

I WAKE HER IN VAIN

I wake her for the sun that explains itself in plants
for the sky stretched between fingers
I wake her for words that burn the throat
I love her with my ears
you have to reach the end of the world and find the dew on the grass
I wake for distant things that look like these around here
for people who without a forehead and name pass through the street
for anonymous words for town squares I wake her
for manufactured landscapes of public parks
I wake her for this planet of ours that may become a mine in
                            the bleeding sky
for the smiles in the stone of comrades fallen asleep between two battles
when the sky was no longer a big birdcage but
                            an airport
my love full of others is part of the dawn
I wake her for the dawn for love for myself for others
I wake her even though that’s more in vain than calling a bird
                            which has landed for good
surely she has said: let him look for me and see that I’m gone
that woman with the hands of a child whom I love
that child fallen asleep without wiping the tears that I’m waking
in vain in vain in vain
I wake her in vain
for she will wake up different and new
I wake her in vain
for her lips won’t be able to tell her
I wake her in vain
you know water flows by but doesn’t say anything
I wake her in vain
a lost name should be promised somebody’s face in the sand

(translated by T.T.)

Giving away 5 CD copies of "I Think of You"! Answer question below to win:

What eye color does Tajna sing about in the song "In the RaiNY City"?

Email answer to mail@tajnatanovic.com - first 5 will be rewarded with a baby!

Photo by Milomir Kovačević Strašni

My first memories of music: shows and concerts on my daddy's shoulders or in his arms (that was in Sarajevo, the city also known as "Little Jerusalem", named "island in the heart of the world" by poet Sidran, a city famous for its ancient love songs). My daddy was then writer and host of the show "Pop Non Stop", the first TV show in the former Yugoslavia dedicated to pop and rock music:

I used to listen to the band Indexi, founded in the 60's in Sarajevo, around the same time when the "Fab Four" were gearing up in Liverpool. Here's my favorite song by Indexi - "Sanjam" ("I'm Dreaming"):

"I'm dreaming of hearing you breathe again

You're breathing while the grass is bending

And of your blonde hair touching me

Your hair on my face darling

I'm dreaming of us making love again in the wheat field

In that wheat field lying underneath us

And of your hot hand wandering

Your hand over my body

I only have one life and I'm throwing it away

For I fell in love with a woman I'm dreaming of

I only have one life which I didn't want

For I fell in love with a woman I wasn't supposed to love

I'm dreaming of telling you: come back to me sweatheart

If need be, run away from everything

For we only live life this once

There lies nothing, nothing beyond it"

After the first chilly day in NYC... let’s get the mind going.

Where shall we begin..? Ahh, yes! My name. How do you pronounce it you ask? Simple: like China with a “T” - Tajna, Tayna, Tina - Tajna.
We’ll get to the meaning a little later in the game.

New to the blogosphere, but not new to jotting down my thoughts when worthwhile capturing - take it as a public diary....?

So happy about the release of “I Think of You” and your numerous feedback, your amazing support from all over the planet - Thank you!

The EP is “almost” fully released, can’t wait to pick up the actual CDs this coming week... packaged in recycled disc wallets with vegetable-based ink.

I couldn’t tell you more about myself than my songs can... so listen closely, you may catch a secret or two. Let’s leave it to them to speak.

In this time (yes, the times have changed, as you predicted Mr. Tambourine Man...), I do what I love the most and I share with you, I post.