Hiroshima (A Little Girl / The Dead Girl)
It's me knocking on the doors
On the doors one after the other
I can't be seen in your eyes
For deaths can't be seen in eyes
It has been some ten years
Since I died in Hiroshima
But I'm still a seven years old girl
Dead children don't grow up
My hair was the first to catch the fire
My eyes burned and charred
I just became a handful of ashes
My ashes got scattered into the air
(There's nothing at all that I'm asking you for myself
Well, a child who burned like a paper can't even eat candies)
I’m knocking on your door...
Aunt, uncle, give a signature...
Children shalln't get killed
So that they are also able to eat candies
Nazım Hikmet RAN
This song is based on the most famous Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet Ran's poem "The Little Girl", which is about a 7 year old girl, who perished in the atomic bomb attack at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945.
Nazım Hikmet Ran, or only Nazım Hikmet, also known as "romantic communist", born on 20 November 1901 in Thessaloniki (Greece), died on 3 June 1963 in Moskau (Russia), wrote three poems for Hiroshima. Another one is "The Japanese Fisherman".
"The Little Girl/Hiroshima Girl" has been performed by numerous singers and musicians worldwide as an anti-war message and in memory of the victims of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and was called "The Little Boy".
The poem was written in 1956 and ten years later, the American music band "The Byrds'" set it to music for the first time on the album "Fifth Dimension" in 1966.