The well-known lyricist and music show producer Giorgos Papastefanou gave a heartfelt interview to SKAI radio and Konstantina Varsami and talked about his life, his career, his love for Greek music and the people he met and admired.

“My father had a factory together with his brother and another gentleman who made batteries well known at the time with the tiger brand. “Thunder” it was called. So one of the first gifts my father gave me was a transistor. A new thing at that time in Greece. We’re talking circa 1950 with this transistor hugger. I was sleeping, waking up in the morning and listening to the broadcasts under the pillow at night” remembered Giorgos Papastefanou.

Since then, still young, he had understood that the radio was his life.

“When I was asked what will you do when you grow up, what will you be? I didn’t say teacher, lawyer, doctor as the normal, normal children of the time called. I was an announcer.”
Giorgos Papastefanou spoke about his first contact with the microphone and the people who opened the doors of radio – and later television – to him, but also how and when he started writing lyrics.

“At that time the song had entered so deeply into our lives. It was. Hatzidakis, Theodorakis, Markopoulos, Xarchakos. Every day something new and very nice came out. So everyone wanted to write… So I too, one day when I was at the university, in a very boring class, I said I don’t write any poetry? And so I wrote a love for summer. I will also be there to keep your hand cool, to kiss you.”

The well-known lyricist spoke about his love for quality Greek songs, even those that came out of the “doghouses”, such as Fotia sa Savvatovrada. “Many songs became hits from them. Let’s say Fotia sa Savvatovrada, I think it is one of the songs, later of course, that was wronged. It’s a very nice song and because it was sung by Angela Dimitriou, they billed it in the second fractions” he said characteristically.

Today, however, after decades in music, he does not update himself musically.

“I don’t listen to Greek songs anymore, nor foreign ones. I think my computer is full. I mean, I’ve listened to so much music over the years and I always discover something new. But if I happen to hear it on the radio or find it on the internet, but I no longer tune in like I used to to listen to so-and-so’s new CD or see who so-and-so is and run to watch him in person”…

You can listen to the whole show here