Georges Moustaki sings the song Metoikos, a Greek song, which translates to “The emigrant” in English.
O Metoikos was originally sung by Moustaki in the French language, with lyrics written by him. The Greek lyrics were written by Dimitris Christodoulou.
It is a song about the people who have spent their life somewhat on the side of the others, living without a “country”. Metoikos is a word with a strong political meaning in Greece, since in ancient Athens a metoikos was a man who could live in the city-state without having any political rights, since he did not actually belong there.
Metoikos is a political song about those people, who had to abandon their dreams and move to another country where they could live a better life: “But they took away from me, both together, the dream and the dawn and I leave before starting”.
This song was written in the late 60s, after two decades of Greeks immigrating to other countries, and communicates the feelings and emotions of Greek people about the loss of their life in their own country. Today, with the increasingly more problems in Greece, it seems that the song has become well timed again.
The song was later performed by Melina Mercouri and Giorgos Ntalaras.