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05 Dec 2010 /

i’m a junkie

By chiara fumai

Chiara Fumai, I'm a Junkie, 2007
03':07"
Video

In the middle of a Greek field, the artist, dressed in traditional clothes, fakes a performance by stealing the words of 1930’s singer Roza Eskenazi. The angelical song played in the video is "Eimai Prezakias" (I'm a Junkie), and is about the beauty and happiness of a drug addicted life as described by the composer, Eskenzai. In 1936, the Greek government banned the audio track used in this video, and yet, it is also now considered part of the national artistic patrimony

“From evening until morning

I live my life by Heroin

And I possess the whole world

When I snort the white powder.

The whole world is my possession

When I have Heroin and snort

And when the police comes around

I squirt out ink like an octopus.

 

When you get high

You become bold

A king, a dictator,

A god and ruler of the world

When you take Heroin

You become happy

And you see everything

In the world through rose-coloured glasses.

 

Ah Heroin, my brother until resurrection!

 

Greece is all mine

And her pitiful state is laughable.

She is missing a foot,

that she gambled at dice.

I will be a dictator

And the world will become ashes.

Someone would light the loulas for me

And someone else would put it out.

 

When you get high

You become bold

A king, a dictator,

A god and  ruler of the world

When you take Heroin

You become happy

And you see everything

In the world through rose-coloured glasses”*

 

Eimai Prezakias (I'm a Junkie) by Eskanazi-Semsis-Tomboulis, 1934

* English translation of the lyrics

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