Selin Göktürk

Selin Göktürk
Sessizliğe Alıştım
Selin Göktürk

Sessizliğe Alıştım

Şarkılar

1 Gölgeler Şehri
2 Kalbimin Saati
3 Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş

Selin Göktürk - Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş - Song Meaning and Story

Theme of the Song

“Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş” tells of the one-sided existence left behind after a relationship that was not experienced in the same way by both people. The title, which evokes the opening of a fairy tale, does not open the door to a happy story here; instead, it reveals how quickly the relationship turned into absence.

The song’s main theme is unequal remembrance. The character waited, felt, and heard, while the other person forgot, failed to hear, and left. The work thus explores the emptiness created when a relationship remains real for one person while it has already ended for the other.

The Story of the Song

The character looks back on the past as though telling a fairy tale: “Once there was, once there wasn’t.” Yet the two people never fully exist together within this tale. The character is present; the person they love is absent. The night has grown long, the clocks have stopped, the character has waited, but the other person has forgotten them.

In the silent night, the character’s heart speaks. They hear their own inner voice clearly, but the person they love does not hear it. Each repetition of the fairy-tale phrase arrives at a more definite truth: at first one person is present while the other is absent; by the finale, the character has remained while the other has left.

The song closes with the question, “I don’t know / Is this good?” This question shows that the character cannot yet define being left alone as either liberation or defeat. What happened has ended, but its meaning has still not been resolved.

What Is the Song Trying to Express?

The song explains how the same relationship can live in completely different ways within the memories of two people. A bond that stops the clocks and lengthens the nights for one person can become a detail that the other has already left behind.

The contrast “I waited / You forgot” is the work’s central idea. The pain here comes not only from being abandoned, but from realizing that what happened did not carry the same weight for the other person. The fact that the character’s heart speaks while the other person fails to hear it symbolizes emotional disconnection.

The use of fairy-tale language is also important. The phrase “once there was, once there wasn’t” normally begins an extraordinary story from the past. In the song, however, this phrase causes the reality of the relationship itself to be questioned. The character seems to ask indirectly, “Did we ever truly exist?”

Content and Narrative Style

The song uses an extremely brief, simple, and repetition-based narrative. In each section, the contrast between “I” and “you” becomes increasingly clear. The lines “I was there / You were not,” “I waited / You forgot,” “I heard / You did not hear,” and “I remained / You left” establish the entire imbalance of the relationship in only a few words.

The juxtaposition of fairy-tale form with the emotion of a modern breakup is the song’s most distinctive narrative choice. The lyrics do not offer a detailed plot; instead, they develop through four contrasts that capture the essence of the relationship: presence and absence, waiting and forgetting, hearing and not hearing, remaining and leaving.

The brief question in the finale leaves the meaning of the track open. The character’s solitude may be painful, yet there is also the possibility of finally escaping a one-sided wait. The song does not make this possibility definite; it leaves the listener within a quiet uncertainty.

Musical Foundation

With a duration of approximately 1 minute and 15 seconds, the song functions less like a full-scale pop narrative and more like an emotional miniature or a short film within the album. Minor tonal colors and a slowly perceived half-time flow support the fairy-tale-like yet sorrowful atmosphere of the lyrics.

The arrangement’s spacious ambient pop approach creates a sense of echo and silence around the brief lyrics. The vocal is intimate, calm, and fragile; the repeated sentences gradually turn into an inner monologue or a thought circling endlessly within the mind.

The use of empty space instead of dense instrumental movement is essential. These spaces act as the musical equivalent of the thought “you were not there.” Although the track ends quickly, the uncertainty left after its final sentence makes its effect last longer than its running time.

General Evaluation

After the album’s first two long and cinematic songs, “Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş” deliberately reduces the scale of the narrative. The broad images of the city are replaced by the most fundamental contrasts between two people. This shift brings the album’s emotional focus even closer.

The song’s strength lies in its simplicity. Despite using very few words, it clearly conveys that the relationship was experienced one-sidedly, that time stopped for one person, and that the other had already moved away. The repetitions are not unnecessary duplication; they show the character’s inability to escape the same thought.

Within the album sequence, this track creates the transition from becoming lost in the city to domestic and personal loneliness. The following song, “Bir Başıma”, portrays the everyday consequence of the truth acknowledged here: “I remained.”

Conclusion

“Bir Varmış Bir Yokmuş” is a brief but effective ambient pop track about a relationship that did not exist at the same time or in the same way for both people. By transforming the opening of a fairy tale into a sentence of separation, it gives a familiar phrase a new emotional meaning.

At the end of the song, the character still does not know whether this is good or bad. One truth, however, is clear: they waited, heard, and remained; the other person forgot, failed to hear, and left. What remains is not a fairy tale that can be told together, but an incomplete story carried by only one person.

4 Bir Başıma
5 Alıştım Artık
6 Yoksunuz Artık
7 Geri Dönüş Yok
8 Ruhumda Yangın Var
9 Dört Mevsim