"Death had a very good day when she took it," Kristina Kovac wrote a few years ago, remembering her mother Spomenka Kovac.
Life and death. The greatest opposite ever, and at the same time an unbreakable whole. Life - the greatest gift that someone can give us and death, which some like to say is the only universal justice on this planet.
Is that so? I'm not sure.
Spomenka Kovač! A lady I never met. Just like her husband Korneli Kovac, but that's why in my youth I knew Osijek-born singers like Dado Topic or Zlatko Pejakovic, who spent part of their artistic life in the cult Belgrade rock group called "Korni Group" founded by Korneli Kovac. But "well" on many records, I would sometimes come across Spomenka's name as a lyricist
Whenever there was talk and writing about the greatest songwriters of the ex YU scene, her name would somehow be skipped. Maybe because she wanted to too. Maybe because the urge of the mother and wife in her, overcame everything else. Maybe because some of these texts are so great, and they were created along the way. While she was welcoming and seeing off the children from school, doing homework with them, taking care of a million other things, related to the family.
She was born in 1951 and married very young, at the age of less than twenty. And when that happens, when family responsibilities arrive, something (or someone) usually has to suffer. But, despite everything, Spomenka was a screenwriter, which is also little known, but also the author of numerous lyrics of the ex YU pop scene, which were sung by some of the most popular singers of that time.
If you were to ask me what is the ‘most loving’ text ever written in ex YU music, to give such an answer would not be at all easy. However, I believe that without thinking too much, I would opt for "Golden Day", a text written by Spomenka, composed by Kornelije, and sung by Bisera Veletanlić. I want to say that there are not too many words in the domestic music sky that carry so many emotions, as is the case with the verses of this song.
The list does not end with this. There are also her texts "Be good and think of me", "You need my strength", but also one of the most beautiful dedications to the capital of this area - "Wonderful young men of Belgrade". These songs were also recorded by Bisera Veletanlić.
Then "This night a woman sleeps peacefully" and "Memories", as the two biggest hits of Zlatko Pejakovic.
In addition to these, there are lyrics sung by her daughters Aleksandra and Kristina, then Neda Ukraden, Dragan Stojnić, Olivera Katarina, Tanja Banjanin, Nina Badrić…
She left in 2005, as quietly as she had lived. The severe illness was stronger. She was 53 years old. However, she waited for her daughters Kristina and Aleksandra, and even the youngest Anja, to go their own way, and even reap the first serious successes.
And you, when you sometimes hear "You are in my blood", "Golden Day" or any of the above compositions, remember at least for a moment this wonderful, self-denying and above all deeply emotional woman. A woman who never achieved the fame of her husband or her daughters, but she apparently didn't want to. That is why her heart exuded the warmth and sacrifice that is scarce in this world.
Bila je jugoslovenski scenarista i tekstopisac brojnih pesama. Spomenka Kovač je bila poznata i kao supruga poznatog kompozitora Kornelija Kovača i majka pevačica Aleksandre Kovač i Kristine Kovač i glumice Anje Kovač.