What is it?

Vesi is a ballad for low female voice and backing band. I have never bothered writing it all out, but if anyone were to be interested I could provide a backing track and a lead sheet on request. It does require a singer able to project a wide dynamic range and get across a complex variety of emotions but other than that the melody is not particularly difficult to sing.

This fine performance gets across well the dynamic and emotional range of the song. It uses a backing track that I prepared and that anyone is welcome to use.

In October 1992 I went to work in Sofia, Bulgaria for four weeks. Our project assistant was a young lady named Vesela Brankova, whom we knew simply as Vesi. After work on Friday 23rd October 1992, a Serbian colleague of mine expressed a desire to visit the Svata Nedelya church in the city centre, to light a candle for a relative of his. Vesi and I went with him. Although relatively young, Vesi was still old enough to have had the communist doctrine of religion being "the poison of the people" drummed into her - and yet I sensed that she knew something was missing from her life.

I suspect that Vesi regarded me as just as much of an emigma as I regarded her. The offices in which we were working were sparse in the extreme and lacked any kind of heating, so Vesi and I were often working in the clothes in which we arrived at the office. I have no idea where she is these days - but I'd love to hear from her if ever she reads this.

How I discovered that the Bulgarian Church of God met in the top-floor conference hall of Sofia's National Palace of Culture is a story in its own right; but on my first visit, we got to a point where the pastor asked everyone to greet the person next to them. Turning to my left, I found myself staring into the eyes of the most stupendously beautiful young woman I'd met in a very long time. She smiled and started speaking to me in Bulgarian. Summoning up the little Bulgarian that I knew at the stage, I said, "I'm sorry, I don't understand you." Her smile broadened into a grin. "You don't understand? Praise God!" she said. Then she threw her arms around me and gave me a kiss.

I'd like to say that I went back the following week out of a desire for spiritual enlightenment - but you wouldn't believe me, would you?!