Tezeta

Tezeta, also written Tizita, means memory, nostalgia and longing. The word also names a pentatonic mode and a whole genre of slow ballads, so many Ethiopian singers have a song with this title, and the feeling is often compared to Portuguese saudade. Dagmawi Woubshet describes it as a signature ballad of the Amharic songbook, always shaped as an expression of loss. Mahmoud is the singer most tied to it, sometimes called the king of tizita, and The Continent calls it his most celebrated song.

He first recorded it as Tizita on a 1972 Philips single with the Imperial Bodyguard Band, the version later collected on Éthiopiques 26. A version of more than twelve minutes with the Ibex Band, from his Amha years, appears on Éthiopiques 10, a various-artists set named after the song. The 1975 recording, also with the Ibex Band, was the fourth track of the Kaifa LP Erè Mèla Mèla and the A-side of a Kaifa single backed with Eho Ho Gedama. It was left off the 1986 Crammed Discs LP and returned as the closing track of Éthiopiques 7.

Live

He told The Continent that hearing others sing it gives him goosebumps, and that he could sing it all day and night. At Carnegie Hall in October 2016, Afropop saw him sit motionless through a melancholy Tizita.

The first upload in the hypersongs web is the 1975 Ibex Band recording as issued on Éthiopiques 7: Erè Mèla Mèla. The second is a live performance with the Melbourne band The JAzmaris at Arts Centre Melbourne in January 2013, and belongs to no album.