The song’s title asks a question of a swan: Аққуым, оралдың ба айдыныңа — My Swan, Have You Returned to Your Waters? Kakimbek Salykov wrote the words and Kenzhebek Kumysbekov the music. Among the composer’s orchestral poems and kui, this song has a life of its own in the voice.
In the family copy of a Kazakh-language radio broadcast, it follows Ayaly Mekenim. The presenter announces the song and its poet; a performance lasting just over four minutes follows. The programme then turns to Kerbezim, a poem for orchestra. Two parts of Kumysbekov’s work — song and orchestral music — stand beside each other on one side of the cassette.
The Altyn Qor electronic archive preserves the song under the names of two singers. Zeinep Koishybaeva recorded it in 1986; Maigul Kazturganova sings it in a separate recording. Those names belong to the archive’s respective recordings. The radio copy presented here preserves another route by which the song reached listeners: through broadcast and a family cassette.
