For more than five decades, he has become one of Lithuania’s most prominent performers, telling stories about people, their fates, love, loneliness, journeys, adventures, and the paradoxes of life through his music.
Virgis Stakėnas is recognized by his voice, charisma, and ability to pull a story out of everyday life as if from a cowboy hat, turning it into a song. Over 53 years of creative work, he has amassed a huge archive of songs and stories, which is thoroughly revealed in the recently published book by Virgis Stakėnas, “Ballads Under the Hat,” published by the “Slinktys” publishing house.
This is an opportunity to take a closer look not only at the work of a well-known performer but also at his path of maturity, stage adventures, and the context in which his songs were created.
63 ballads – stories of five decades of creativity
“Ballads Under the Hat” is a summary of Virgis Stakėnas’s 53 years of creative activity, containing 63 original ballads selected from a vast archive of 346 ballads in one publication. Each story is accompanied not only by the text but also by a narrative about the creation of the piece, its circumstances, and its place in the author’s life.
Chords and their charts are provided alongside the ballads, and QR codes offer the opportunity to hear specially recorded guitar versions of the pieces. The book is rich in photographs, quotes, bibliographic and informational material, and is complemented by “Steampunk” style drawings specially created by artist Jolanta Rudokienė.
The history of the sung poetry genre in Lithuania is also discussed separately, drawing attention to some inaccurate facts that have become established until now. Thus, the book is not only meant to be read: it can be “listened to,” played by oneself, and offers a closer look at Virgis Stakėnas’s creative path spanning more than half a century.
From the first ideas to “Ballads Under the Hat”
The author himself, who recently took the book into his hands, looks at it as if from the outside:
“I am reading the ‘just released me.’ The book was specially arranged in chronological order so that the reader could feel the author’s maturation from the first creative attempts to the present. I try to be that reader. As if anew. As if from the side (from outside). It seems to work: I don’t believe, I am amazed, I want to ask. I discover…”
In a 2023 interview, V. Stakėnas said he had been writing the book in his mind for about a decade and seriously started working on it six years ago. He called it a kind of life report and said it all began in a medical facility when he started writing ballad stories on a tablet because people constantly asked how one or another piece was born.
“To create something, you have to burn yourself. If not, what will come of it? Lies and imitation. So my book was born out of the desire to tell what I live by and how my creativity came about.” – the author of “Ballads Under the Hat” said earlier.
To create something, you have to burn yourself.
In the book, Virgis Stakėnas also talks about the process of creating it: “[At first] it was just a web of thoughts-ideas-plans. Until I realized that I needed to sew a garment from it.” When selecting works, the author categorized them by literary theme, poetic value, musical manner, playing technique, biographical reflections, and uniqueness: “And it began! Competition. Just a ring. The ballads fighting each other. I was three in one – player, coach, and referee… I analyzed, arranged, compared, evaluated. The surgical work was painful. But it had to be done.”
A man from Šiauliai who became a Lithuanian music icon
One of the first readers of the book “Ballads Under the Hat” is writer and recipient of the Government Culture and Art Award Rimantas Kmita. He says he is not surprised that the songwriter and performer was quickly noticed. Virgis Stakėnas became popular with his songs, from which, as R. Kmita notes, authenticity radiates, not clichés that were hard to avoid at that time: “[Stakėnas’s music] seems to snuggle up and whisper to you in a calm voice.”
The well-known writer, who vividly revealed the atmosphere of Lithuania’s early independence years and paid much attention to the city of Šiauliai in his novels “Southern Chronicles” and “Editas Complex,” emphasizes V. Stakėnas’s Šiauliai origin: “Virgis is from Šiauliai. And this is not only about the place of birth, life, and creativity. Šiauliai is a city where no one brings a ready-made thing on a plate. Everything must be done by oneself, with one’s own hands. Like in all small towns. And Virgis has been doing it himself from the very beginning – the sung poetry studio, festivals, events.”
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Speaking about V. Stakėnas’s place in music history, R. Kmita emphasizes not only his creativity but also his distinctive stage image and ability to reflect the mood of the era:
“Virgis Stakėnas is not just a man from Šiauliai but one of the icons of Šiauliai. Maybe not only Šiauliai but Lithuanian music. What does an icon need? Visuality, of course. In 1991, Virgis brought a cowboy hat from Canada, and we saw that big man with a guitar, harmonica, and glasses. And although his piece ‘Stiliaga’ can be called one of the most iconic songs, visuality alone is not enough for an icon. Songs were also needed. And in those first years of independence, not only the hat was new. While Soviet-era magazines debated how to define those people with guitars singing their own or others’ poetry, Virgis Stakėnas found, brought, or showed a new word – Country.”
Virgis Stakėnas is not just a man from Šiauliai but one of the icons of Šiauliai.
And he himself was most associated with country. And his songs are not only about the countryside. An icon hits the target that many people vaguely sensed in their time, but there must be a person who shoots an arrow straight through that fog. So Virgis Stakėnas was among those phenomena that were new. We were creating a new state and a new life, and everyone’s eyes were on what was new.”
Text, music, and the author’s life story
The book’s publisher Juozas Žitkauskas is pleased to add another stage master’s book to the shelves of the “Slinktys” publishing house:
“Alongside Saulius Bareikis’s ‘Ode to the Loser’ stands Virgis Stakėnas’s ‘Ballads Under the Hat.’ These two books, like their authors, have similarities but also differences. Both are representatives of sung poetry, both books feature prominent autobiographical elements. The reader can follow Virgis’s life and creative path through the stories about the creation of the ballads published alongside their texts, illustrated with photographs. The book is not only for reading: QR codes invite you to hear the ballads live, and the provided guitar chords allow you to try them yourself.”
“This is a multifunctional publication, of which there are few in Lithuania, or maybe we don’t have such a unified one where text, music, image, and the author’s life story are so intertwined. But Virgis himself
is one of those performers who do many things differently: breaking established traditions, seeking his own path, and not afraid to be first.” – says Juozas Žitkauskas, head of the “Slinktys” publishing house.
The phenomenon of sung poetry in Lithuanian culture
Another admirer of Virgis Stakėnas’s work is composer and recipient of the National Culture and Art Award Giedrius Kuprevičius, who calls the author of “Ballads Under the Hat” a phenomenon. In the book, he views V. Stakėnas’s work in the broader context of sung poetry in Lithuanian culture:
“Sung poetry” in the Lithuanian SSR was a secret password of civic stance understood by everyone, which allowed people of that era, still unexplained to the current generation, to express more and differently than was allowed at the time. Virgis Stakėnas was one of those who consciously and subconsciously felt the need for such expression. His civic stance was somewhat different and has remained so until now. What characterized it? Perhaps it came from a mixture of 19th-century Lithuanian folk ballads and the legacy of American bards, dominated by the drama of the relationship between the individual and the world, images of everyday life, and the pathos of dreams.”
His civic stance was somewhat different and has remained so until now.
G. Kuprevičius also points out that the phenomenon of sung poetry in Lithuanian cultural history has not yet been sufficiently studied: “It is unfortunate that our art history has not found the time, attention, and resources for the phenomenon of sung poetry in Lithuania. Except for a few modest articles, there are no serious studies, let alone monographs or scientific research. The genre has remained on the sidelines of culture. Virgis Stakėnas’s work has grown into the Lithuanian cultural forest as a strong, distinctive tree, and now with its branches – the pages of this book – it also embraces everyone who enters that forest.”
The book “Ballads Under the Hat” is available in physical and online bookstores, and its first presentation, where it will be possible to meet the author, will take place on September 19 at the Kaunas Book Fair.
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