Lavrentis Mahairitsas and Giorgos Ntalaras sing Didymoteicho blues, a famous Greek song which translates to “Blues from Didymoteicho”.
Didymoteicho blues is probably one of the most popular songs by Mahairitsas, who wrote the music of the song, while the lyrics were written by Giannis Bach Spyropoulos . The participation of Ntalaras in its performance played also a very important role to the overall success of the song.
Didymoteicho blues is not an “easy” Greek song. It is considered quite controversial and raised many reactions due to the lyrics.
Didymoteicho is one of the Greek cities of North Greece, close to the borders with Turkey. It is considered a small place, but of significant military-defensive importance. The mayor of the city asked the lyricist to remove some lyrics such as the “hole in geography”, but the misconception of the song was solved when Mahairitsas and Ntalaras decided to give a concert at Didymoteicho.
The song is autobiographical for Mahairitsas, since it describes his experiences from the army. He narrated them to Spyropoulos once, and he wrote the lyrics for the song.
The producer of the song was the first who understood the impact of the song, and Didymoteicho blues remains till today one of the most popular Greek rock songs with a political nuance.