3 Ramos

I first heard Ramo Ramo in the early 1980s on an album by the Balkan Rhythm Jazz Band, a young, hip, happening and very American ensemble out of Chicago. I've been hunting for years for even a YouTube recording of the version I first heard, with no success  (here's a live performance from 1982 minus singers), but the search has been rewarding in any case because of the song itself.  Mirjana Lausevic,  in the introduction to her examination of Americans' affinity for Balkan music, Balkan Fascination: Creating an Alternative Music Culture in America (Oxford Univerisity Press, 2015), conveys a Yugoslavian perspective on what makes the song so special:

However, the biggest surprise of the evening was yet to come: "Ramo, Ramo, druže moj" ... It was the end of 1992 in New York, and within these walls covered with Balkan carpets and tapestries several hundred Americans were packed tightly, holding hands, dancing a circle dance while singing in Serbo-Croatian "Ramo, Ramo, druže moj."  I had a flashback to a time when I was little, spending the summer with my family on the Adriatic coast, in a syndicated (government-subsidized) vacation resort. We were dining outdoors on a concrete porch shaded by a grape vine. "Ramo, Ramo, druže moj" was the hit of the summer, played during every meal on the stereo, and then live during dinner.  I was six or seven at the time, and it was the first time I remember being deeply affected by a song.  I was very intrigued by the story behind the song, trying to understand who Ramo was and why the singer with the crying voice was so sad.  Much later I learned that the song had its origin in a Hindi film that was very popular in Yugoslavia in the early 1970s, which explains why it sounded so unusual to me.  Numerous local musicians and restaurant bands had their versions of the song, but how did "Ramo, Ramo..." make it to the States?  Why would Americans in New York more than twenty years later be singing, of all songs, "Ramo, Ramo, druže moj" in Serbo-Croatian? What kinds of images came in their minds when they heard the song?  Did they understand why the singer was so sad?

Here, an infinite number of Americans dance a čoček to the song played live by an uncredited band:

The history of the Serbian version of the song is traced more fully in Romani Routes: Cultural Politics and Balkan Music in Diaspora, by Carol Silverman  (Oxford University Press, 2011):

In the 1970s, Macedonian and Serbian Romani musicians embraced Indian-inspired melodies and songs, reflecting the growing diaspora consciousness of Roma.  In Macedonia there was a veritable craze for Indian culture; parents gave their children Indian names such as Rajiv and Indira, and one famous singer [Esma Redžepova] made pilgrimages to India... Movies from India were widely viewed by Roma (who could understand them because Hindi, like Romani, is related to Sanskrit), and movie tunes were turned into čočeks. ...  Muharem Serbezovski's Serbian song "Ramo Ramo" a tune inspired by an Indian film became a hit in the 1970s. Many versions were released in Yugoslavia. A Romani version appeared in Serbia/Kosovo in the 1970s as "Celo Dive Mangasa" (All Day We Beg)

The version that started it all in Yugoslavia in 1974:

Slobodan Ilić Boban has a more traditionally Serbian version but this one gives a flavor of what the Hindi inspiration might have sounded like:

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ramo-druze-moj-ramo-my-friend.html#ixzz58QQKGl7c

Ramo, druže moj
Kad sam sreo druga svog
prijatelja jedinog
najsrecniji bese dan
jer ne bejah vise sam

Pesma nas je tesila
ljubav nam se smesila
ali vihor sudbine
od mene ga odvede

Ref.
Aj Ramo
Ramo, Ramo druze moj
Ramo, Ramo druze moj
da li cujes jecaj moj

U tami sad zivim sam
ko ugasen suncev plam
jer ti si otisao
bolji zivot nasao

Ali ipak nadam se
i zovem te vrati se
vrati mi se Ramo ti
sudbine smo iste mi

http://lyricstranslate.com/en/ramo-druze-moj-ramo-my-friend.html#ixzz58QQSTlF6

Ramo, my friend

When I met my friend

my only friend

it was the happiest day

because I wasn't alone anymore

A song consoled us

love laughed at us

but the destiny's whirlwind

took him away from me

Ref.

Aj Ramo

Ramo, Ramo my friend

Ramo, Ramo my friend

do you hear my sob

Now I live alone in the dark

like an extinguished flame of the sun

because you went away

and found a better life

But still I hope

and I'm asking you to return

return to me Ramo

we share the same destiny

~~~~~~~~~~

I don't know what to say about one writer's certainty that the lyrics are the first example in popular culture of relaxed Yugoslavian attitudes toward open homosexuality. It's certainly plausible.  In my experience the world is full of men who seem to think that sex is for women and love is for men.  But given the many references to "my friend" it does seem intended to be sung in any case in a spirit of deeply felt camaraderie.  This is true when performed by the many men who've tackled it and no less by the women.

Finally, as representative of the song's popularity outside of the Balkans, particularly in Turkey, an  instrumental version on buzuki by German born Orhan Osman: