Im making this post today in order to commemorate the death of Тоше Проески....which happened exactly one year ago, 16.10.2007...a day i dont think ill ever forget....
Some of you, esp. if you are outside Europe, had already had the chance to see him on a stamp i had put on your postcards or envelopes..the stamp to which for some reason you want to refer to as 'the guy with the dove'...apologies to those inside Europe, but its somewhat harder to combine this stamp with another one in order to post something to you...but if you really want this stamp, ill see what i can do about it next time i send you something...
It was one year ago, when after I woke up i turned the TV on and the first thing i saw was some performance of Toshe with some other musicians....which wouldnt have been so odd unless I actually noticed the words "In Memoriam" on the screen...this immediately gave me the creeps and made me wonder who had actually died...not in my wildest dreams I would have thought it is Toshe...to me, and to all of us, the guy was simply immortal...so, I switched to the Teletext to read the news, and that was when it hit me...it said "Toshe Proeski died in a car accident"..I switched all channels and everybody was either talking about it or had his music on, with the words scrolling through the screen, of what had happened...he was just 26 years old...
ive never been his fan..i never liked him...though I do admit he had some really good songs, and I never denied he has a terrific voice...but i never was a fan in the sense most of the people here were...and believe me, he had the greatest fan population ever...everyone loved him...it was in his nature I guess...he was kind and generous and sincere, and with all his fatih dedicated to God and his family...he was just sooo down to earth, unlike most of the popular people...even though i didnt like him, I admit he did deserve all the attention and popularity he had...not just in Macedonia, but oisde the country as well...
I would never be able to convey the atmosphere here during that and the following days...you could have simply felt the sadness and grief flowing through the air...not even when our former president died in a plane crash years before that, people grieved like this...
The city sqare here was full of people, young and old, litting candles, leaving flowers, messages, stuffed animals...people crying all the time...no one could have actually realized of what had happened...
They broadcasted the entire ceremony on TV as well...from the arrival of the coffin at the airport, to the burial itself...I would never forget the moment when the plane arrived at 11 pm at the airport, and they took out his coffin from there....one of the creepiest things i had ever witnessed...coz this was real...this wasnt a movie...this was something really happening and we all knew that inside that coffin is Toshe's body...we all knew he would never come back, even though we all still thought that its just a part of some bad dream, and that Toshe would come out of somewhere..we couldnt face it...coz it was Toshe..Toshe couldnt die...Toshe was everywhere around as...on Tv, in the papers, on the radio...it was inevitable a day to pass without hearing or reading something about Toshe..we felt like his constant presence is simply more than natural, and we were used to it, regardless how annoying it could have get...and now we had to push the stop button and make a drastic change of the reality....
it was when he died when it surfaced of how much he had actually done for the music scene here and the country in general...it was then when it surfaced how huge he really was in every sense, and why people loved him so much...it was then when all of a sudden we started to appreciate many things regarding him....I really wonder why the hell do we realize what we have had once we actually lose that....even me...why did he have to die so I actually figure out the exact figure he represented....the shy teenage guy from Krusevo, who turned into the greatest Macedonian star ever...completely deserved...
I think that the media back then also contributed a lot to making things much more dramatic, as if they werent enough already....I personally, couldnt stop crying for days...I was surprised at my own reactions, that I grieve and cry for someone i never really cared for nor listened to...most of my friends went to his concerts....i never did...I just couldnt picture myself at a concert of his.. I still cant...if he was alive today, i still wouldnt go to his concert...but the difference is that today I much more appreciate all that he did, and grasped the depth of his music and the emotions he had put in things he did...should i say he did countless of thigns for charity? should i say he made hundreds of children smile just coz he personally went to visit them at a hospital or at their home coz they were sick? Yeah, it is a part of a propaganda, but he did it wholeheartidly, not just so they write in the papers next day about it...he was a real humanist...its such such a pity of what happened....i just cant believe it that a whole year had passed since then...time flies so fast...
Regarding the accident itself...I never believed it really was an accident...certain things of the jigsaw just DONT fall into place...many things were done rushed, many things took infinite amount of time to be investigated...many things they served us, just dont make sense...but it all doesnt matter now...he is gone...its pointless to be debating whether it was really an accident or a conspiracy or something else...that wont bring him back...
I wouldnt go into details about his life and all....if you want to, you can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To%C5%A1e_Proeski
ill just post some of the songs i think are worth posting...i know you wont understand most of them, since they are in Macedonian or Serbian...but at least you can hear some Macedonian music and you can get to see and hear him...
R.I.P Toshe!
this has got to be one of my favourite performances of his...this is actually a Macedonial old traditional song, which i had always loved...his perforamnce is just terrific....the song itself, i have always found it really sad, but beautiful...
Zajdi Zajdi, Jasno Sonce (- Set down Set down clear Sun)
Cija si (- Whose are you?)
Angel si ti ( - You are an angel)
from the Eurovision song contest...due to adjustments at all, the song there was performed under the name of "Life"..i never liked this performance, and I always CLAIM we should stop going to Eurovision...but i still think its approproate to post this today, regardless my opinion about it...
Lejdi (- Lady)
this is the Serbian version...couldnt find the Macedonian one..yet, i always thought there is something powerful in this one..I love it
Aria
Toshe performing with Gianna Nannini....
Tajno Moja ( - Secret of mine)
Live version...ive always loved this one, i admit that
Soba za taga ( - A room for sadnees)
another live version...no official videos.....this is at his last concert in Skopje, 5th October...just 11 days before he died...
Igri Bez Granici ( - Games with no Boundaries)
this is the song which is giving me the creeps...its from his last songs....has the feeling of death, of a life wasted, as if he had known he was going to die soon...saying he is tired of life, with empty written pages, with constant failures...i cant help but shiver each time i listen to it
I could post more and more stuff...unfortunately i couldnt find some of my favourite stuff so i can share them with you...but in case you want to see and hear more, just go to YouTube and search for him....you will as well see videos from the accident, from the burial ceremony, from when the plane brought his coffin...im sorry, but I couldnt post those here....
Thank you for your attention at this post...this aint for me...its for Toshe...and for his life...the creidts of today;s post go to him, not me...
btw, i hate translating titles...but i did it, just so you get the context of the song and what is it about
2 comments:
Hi Ana, it's Anastasia from Moscow, we did a private swap with you. I was looking though your blog and i couldn't pass by this post.. I learned about Toshe from a macedonian guy i met last summer. He was very addicted to Toshe and gave me to listen some of his songs. I loved them.. It was interesting to learn more about him thanks to you. I liked the way you wrote about him and that tragedy.
Anasty
Thank you Anastasia...i really appreciate your feedback :)
I think that this is one of the most personal and emotional posts i had made here....
thanks for dropping by :)
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