On New Year’s Day in 2021, Artin, a one-year-old boy from Iran, was found, having drifted ashore on the island of Karmøy on the Norwegian west coast. He was identified after painstaking police work where it was discovered that the entire family had drowned in the English Channel during an attempt to make it from France to England in an inflatable rubber dinghy late in October 2020. The family had fled from Iran some months earlier. Little Artin drifted with the wind and currents all the way to Karmøy, where he was found on a beach two months later.

This refugee tragedy is the basis for lyrics written by Erik Hillestad, which the Iranian artist Mahsa Vahdat has made a melody to. Atabak Elyasi wrote a Persian version of the lyrics, and as soon as the travel restrictions due to the pandemic made it possible, the song was recorded as a duet between Mahsa and the Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell. On grand piano we hear Tord Gustavsen and on trumpet Sjur Miljeteig. “Lullaby of the sea – Havets voggesang” is now being released as a single track by Kirkelig Kulturverksted one year after Artin was found on the beach.

 

All the income from the streaming of this track goes to the organisation “A Drop in the Ocean” https://www.drapenihavet.no/en/a-drop-in-the-ocean/

 

Here is a translation of the lyrics:

On his father’s back, towards hills far away – to freedom

He is rocked into sleep, on a fading day – to freedom

Just the moon can see them leaving their land,

as the border is hidden in dust and in sand – to freedom

 

 And soon they have reached to a waiting car – to freedom

A motor will rock him so long and so far – to freedom

Just the stars may know how much they long

He sleeps his way forward, his flight is a song – of freedom

 

They reach to a coast, a boat is ready – to freedom

A sea is the last hinder they see – to freedom

But October sends icing winds from the north

And the waves swallow everybody on board – to freedom

 

He is rocked by the waves for a hundred days – in freedom

Embraced by the sleep where eternity stays – and freedom

He is one with a world of salt and stream

At last, all the sun can see is a dream – of freedom

 

Only his shroud could reach to our land – our freedom

We found it in January on a strand – of freedom

But we love this land, every mountain and fjord

For ourselves we will keep all our blessings stored – In freedom