Words of Miltos Paschalidis: “Marios is perhaps the only composer who could, in a way, be described as Loizos's successor, in the sense that Manos Loizos could easily write dark and wild things, such as the Negroes. And at the same time to write “The Mermaid”, “I have a cafe”. He could jump from orchestrations, forms and songs and make different things which, if you isolate them, you do not think are of the same composer and still retain their singing essence. Marios Tokas did exactly the same thing, who has written “Kif”, but has also written “I'm looking for you” and “The Seas”. It was a great melody. We had met many times and made plans, but when people make plans, someone up there bursts out laughing. I remember a sweet & amp; a tender man and a really great melodist, whose songs I brag about when his friends ask me to defend them… ».
Fourteen years have passed since the death of Mario Tokas. Words are poor to express its size and displacement. Whatever you say, whatever you write, there will always be more and more to complete his image. We have selected a tribute from the official website Marios Tokaw/Marios Tokaw Official Webs and it concerns the ten stations of life
- The inter-communal riots in Cyprus, the dictatorship in Greece, the coup d'etat of July 1974 and the Turkish invasion that followed injured his adolescence, engraved his soul and marked him, like, after all, all his peers. These experiences defined his musical beginning and were always reflected in the work in various ways. In 1981, in a bold move, for the data of the time, he composed the words of the then 15-year-old Turkish Cypriot student, Nesie Yassin, entitled “My Homeland”, translated by the poet Elli Paionidou. This song, where a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot united their voices for their own homeland that has been divided in two, was and is a symbol of unity between people, was sung and continues to be sung by all Cypriot Hellenism and was interpreted in a unique way by George Dalaras. After all, the reunification of the island and the peaceful coexistence of the two communities, without the presence of the occupying troops, has always been Mario Tokas's dream, a dream that never saw come true.
2. Manos Loizos, who encouraged him when he heard his first songs in Cyprus, in 1972, and encouraged him to make the big decision to move to Athens, the center of professional discography, in order to continue his musical career there. p>
3. His first album entitled “The songs of the company”, which was released in 1978 with singer Manolis Mitsias. In this album, apart from the music, Marios Tokas also wrote the lyrics, because, until then, he did not know any lyricist. The songs “The bum” and “the neighbors shout” immediately became hits and the “doors” of the record companies opened wide… The song “The neighbors shout” was written by Mario in his studio on Gaiou Street in the Municipality of Zografou lived during his first student years in Athens. It was a very small and narrow street where especially in the summer months the neighbors' speeches, the voices of the children playing in the street, the voices of the vendors, this liveliness of the neighborhood, reminded him of his childhood in the neighborhoods of Limassol, moved him , and was the inspiration for this song.
4. The birth of his three children, Charoula, Kostas and Angelos, the upbringing, the daily life with them and finally the warmth of a beautiful family, influenced Mario and formed the most favorable and peaceful environment of inspiration and creation. It is a fact that Marios had a particular weakness in his only daughter, Chara, with whom he had a very beautiful and special relationship.
His twin boys, Kostas and Angelos, were the great source of inspiration for the great songs he wrote in the early 90 'when they were born. The Twin Moons was a song he always dedicated to his two sons.
5. His collaboration with the lyricist Sarantis Alivizatos on the album “Mikra erotika” with Antonis Kalogiannis was another milestone for his musical career. The songs “Annoula tou chionia”, “I love you like the laughter of May” were loved by the world and are now considered timeless.
6. His later beautiful collaboration with Giannis Parios, in the lyrics of which the great success “Like a crazy truck” was written, was another milestone in his career. Marios Tokas after the first musical meeting with Giannis Parios, visited him one night in the dressing room of the music center where he worked in order to chat about some of his lyrics. Parios did not have much time because he had to go on stage, so he told Mario Tokas to see the block with his lyrics for himself.
Browsing through it, he found “Like a Crazy Truck”. He cut the sheet without anyone noticing, wrote the song and only after a few days he called Giannis Parios to sing it to him. Giannis Parios sang the song for the first time in 1989, at a concert by Marios Tokas in Lycabettus, before it was even released on an album. The reactions of the audience were apotheosis, a prelude to what would follow with the release of the album…
7. The musical collaboration with the great composers Giorgos Chatzinassios and Giannis Spanos, in music venues of Athens and Thessaloniki was an important moment in his course since, for the first time, he stood, as an equal, on the side of already renowned composers./p>
8. The musical meetings with Dimitris Mitropanos and his collaboration with the lyricist F. Grapsas, which resulted in favorite songs such as “I'm looking for you in Thessaloniki”, “Seas”, “Ladadika”, “A stop here”. It was a collaboration where all the producers of the album believed that the acceptance from the world and the success was a given.
The events, however, exceeded the initial expectations… The songs of the album “Our national loneliness” were not heard on the radio for six whole months. Until near Christmas 1992, the album was featured on a television station. That's it! The radios started playing the songs of the album with incredible frequency, such that made Mario Tokas worried about the intense repetition…. tired the world…. It fell out .. The same songs are heard, to this day, on the country's radios with remarkable frequency and are sung by young children who were not even born when they were first released…
9. The visit of Marios Tokas to the hermitage of Mikra Agia Anna on Mount Athos, the all-encompassing environment of the Monastery, the contact with the hymns of the monk Gerasimos Mikragiannanitis strongly inspired Marios Tokas where shortly after he composed the symphonic ecclesiastical work “Marian Theogenis” , his most important and most complete work, as he said.
It is worth noting that the play “Theogennitor Maria” was written twice in two different ways, as, for the first time, it lost the scores inside the house (which have been found in a book – is in his family's personal file).
10. Friendship and collaboration with the poet Alkis Alkaios. In the album “Edelweiss” in 1999, Dimitris Mitropanos meets the melody of Tokas and the riveting lyrics of Alkaios.
Marios used to say:” Alkis Alkaios and I had our first meeting in December 1996. For me it was a happy, blessed moment. I feel his lyrics at every moment put me in unprecedented musical paths, open my soul and send it high, very high. “In this strange time, it made me even more confident that our game had not been played yet, even if our banners were lonely.” Recently, in 2017, some of his songs from his collaboration with Alkis, such as “the Xerolithies” and “the Clown”, were released by Miltos Paschalidis on his album, entitled “Songs That Live Secretly”.
