Stis Gramvoussas t’ Akrotiri

"Stis Gramvoussas t’ Akrotiri”

The video of Nikos Androulakis singing “Stis Gramvoussas t’ Akrotiri”

The song “Stis Gramvoussas t’ Akrotiri” by Kostas Mountakis is one of the most-sung and best-loved songs of Crete. The Tzegas mentioned in the lyrics was a real person born in 1900.

He was a fisherman and, with his boat “Kyriakos”, lived from the offerings of the sea around Gramvoussa, where he was lost in the raging waves in 1966.

Nikos Tzegas had a unique talent: he could compose music by whistling, although he did not play any musical instrument.

At Gramvoussa’s cape I once made merry
With a Cretan fisherman
An old captain
Whose boat was named joy, in the waters of Gramvoussa.
Seductive sea, sea drowner of fine men,
Where’s the old merrymaker and the ancient singer?

All the boats are sailing, with sheet and oar,
In the waters of Gramvoussa.
But Tzega’s little boat returns no more
To the waters of Gramvoussa.
Seductive sea, sea drowner of fine men,
Where’s the old merrymaker, the ancient singer?
To rig out his joy and sing his song?

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