Alexis’s First Crush

Picture it: Los Altos Hills, California, 1999. 11-year-old Alexis is attending Sunday School at the Beth Am Synagogue, as they did every Sunday. Alexis was slightly resentful about spending so much time in synagogue, a place that peddled a religion they never really bought into, half-learning a language (Hebrew) that they never truly learned. 

But even at eleven, the Jewish dance teacher couldn’t slide one past little Alexis, no. Learning all sorts of traditional dance steps, mostly to modern Israeli music. Of course, Alexis was only eleven, so couldn’t necessarily tell the various exotic languages apart at the time. A song came on in a more upbeat, modern dance class that mesmerized little Alexis. It had sounds like they had never heard before, instruments they hadn’t heard in pop music before with his contemporaries the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears and the Spice Girls, and a silky-smooth man’s voice helming an upbeat, quirky dance track. Alexis danced the most of anyone in the class.

After class, Alexis went up to their teacher and asked her what that amazing song was. She didn’t know, and had to pop the mix CD out of the boombox to look at the handwritten Sharpie label. She said: “it’s called ’Kiss Kiss.’” Alexis was on a mission to find this song and have it for themself.

Of course, this was no easy task. Google didn’t exist back then, nor did Wikipedia, nor did internet access without Bogarting the phone line. So Alexis dragged their mother to the nearest Wherehouse record store. Alexis finds the first staff member they could find and urges: “I need help finding a song. All I know is that it’s called ‘Kiss Kiss.’” She responded: “I have no idea. Let me ask my coworker.” She beckons the coworker, to whom Alexis asks the same question. He responds: “Oh, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Come with me.” Alexis walked across the store with him, Mom following somewhere behind. They reached a rack and the man said: “We just got these in, new from Europe.” Alexis gazed at the cover, and before even looking at the track listing on the back, got stuck.

On the front of the album was the most beautiful human being Alexis had ever seen. He happened to be a man. He had this light facial scruff, sparkling green eyes that pierces your inevitable gaze, a slightly hooked nose, and a jawline people pay millions of dollars for. Alexis said nothing, and just stared. Their mom came over, so Alexis engaged with the back cover instead.

“But there is no song called ‘Kiss Kiss’ on this album!” cried Alexis to the employee, almost in a panic. “Don’t worry,” the employee assured, “it’s on there. It’s this first song.” “But that’s called ’Şımarık.’ How do you even pronounce that?” The employee laughed. “That I can’t help you with. Enjoy.”

Alexis took their mom up to the register and bought the CD, which was a self-titled European compilation album by the artist Tarkan. Alexis asked: “Mom, this isn’t Hebrew on the box, is it?” “No, Alexis, that looks like it could be Turkish.” Alexis listened to this CD until it ran its course, and stared at the album cover even more. 

The Alexis in this story was… me. My husband knows that there are two celebrities I would leave him for in a heartbeat: Trent Reznor and Tarkan. I listened to that compilation album, which I learned much later was a compendium of songs from Tarkan’s previous two albums in Türkiye: Aacayipsin (1994) and Ölürüm Sana (1997), re-released for European audiences, where the album was incredibly successful. Tarkan’s early career featured heavy mentoring by legendary Turkish-American producer and owner of Atlantic Records Ahmet Ertegun, and mentoring in songwriting by Türkiye’s most famous pop star, Sezen Aksu, who is like Madonna and Elvis all rolled into one when it comes to pop music in Türkiye. But Tarkan’s career, especially internationally, has been nothing short of extraordinary, despite singing almost exclusively in Turkish. Ahmet Ertegun described Tarkan as one of the best performers he had ever seen. And he looks better than ever at 53, if I may say so myself. 

Is it telling that my first crush was a Turkish pop star who none of my friends have heard of, even as an adult? Probably. Is it telling that I tried to learn Turkish just by listening to him sing? Also probably. I’ve always kind of been a bit of an oddball that way. But I just consider everyone’s lack of knowledge a greater chance of success for myself—in my dreams, at least.

To the music: I’ll cover three songs from Tarkan’s 1997 album Ölürüm Sana. And, yes, I know all of the words to all three of these songs (and several others of his and, later, Sezen Aksu’s), despite not ever having learned Turkish. 

Şımarık

The song later covered in English as “Kiss Kiss” by Stella Soleil and Holly Valance began my lifelong infatuation. The instrumentation is decidedly Middle Eastern-sounding, particularly if you’re eleven years old and haven’t done the deeper dives into Middle Eastern music yet. It’s really just some violins, but I’d never heard that in pop music before. It’s clearly a lighthearted dance song, with a wink and a blown kiss. I don’t even remember what dance went along to this song. But, really, it can be pretty much anything. Plus, Turkish is just a sexy-sounding language. Or, maybe any language is sexy when sung by Tarkan. Even though his English-language album Bounce was my least favorite of all his work. Good luck ever getting Şımarık out of your head; it’s been trapped in my brain for over 25 years. It has a little piece of my soul hiding out in there with it, and it lives nearby Vengaboys’s “We Like to Party” and Laut Sprecher’s “Omnibus.”

Ölürüm Sana

This song is a “rock” song, inasmuch as any song with a guitar lick is a rock song. In the lead-up to the chorus, when Tarkan is repeating the words “Ölürüm Sana,” which means “I would die for you,” he does this orgasmic “oooof” that I humbly think is one of the sexiest things ever recorded. It’s at the 1:12 mark on the video and recording. Regardless of the song’s lack of production, it shows Tarkan’s range and comfort singing songs of different styles. This song also has an epic almost-operatic bridge that shows even more range.

Bu Gece (Kır Zincirlerini)

While “Şımarık” is more sexy with a nod and a wink, this song is just sex on a platter. “Bu Gece” simply means “tonight,” and “Kır Zincirlerini” means “break the chains.” Even in the video, he’s basically just sweating and writhing for nearly four minutes while an incomprehensible series of events happens in the background. But let’s be real: if you watched these videos, you’re not watching for artistic content, you’re watching to see the world’s sexiest man at age 27. And you are right to do so.

Okay, this was officially my favorite Worldwide Wednesdays to write. I’ll swing back around to Tarkan later, because while this album is what made him a superstar, he has so much incredible music. His pop mentor, Sezen Aksu, also has an incredible body of work that I look forward to writing about.