Ceca on 'Beograd': I Wrote the Ending Myself

Svetlana “Ceca” Raznatovic, on the night between August 8 and 9, right after her performance at the Top Hill club in Budva, explained for the first time and in detail how the song “Beograd” came together. She said she first offered it to Marina Tucakovic, and that she wrote the ending herself at home, with Oliver Mandic at the piano.

She told reporters as much in a few sentences as soon as she stepped off the stage, with no hedging.

I offered the song to Marina, and she told me to write it myself.

She followed that immediately by naming who else was in the room when the song got its ending.

Oliver Mandic was at my house, he sat down at the piano, and I came up with that ending together with him.

Until that night, she had never spoken about it publicly in those terms. The only thing that had come from her before was a single sentence on X, a few days earlier.

Who wrote the line “My Belgrade, embrace me”?

The debate did not start with her. It began with a post from an X user comparing the careers of Halid Beslic and Dino Merlin, their influence and the directions they took. Another user then jumped in to defend Merlin, citing a line from Ceca’s song as evidence of his reach.

Well, Dino Merlin wrote “my Belgrade, embrace me” too, that’s a dumb comparison.

Ceca stepped in herself at that point, briefly.

I wrote those lines myself.

In the back and forth, what she actually meant got lost. She is not claiming the song is hers from the first word to the last. She is claiming that one part of it, the disputed line and the ending written with Mandic at the piano, is hers. Dino Merlin had said earlier, in a statement to Kurir, that he wrote the song for her in early 1991 in Switzerland. The two claims are not automatically contradictory, but the public immediately pitted them against each other.

For a song that is 35 years old, it is quite late to be finding out how it was put together. That is exactly why this is news now.

Second Top Hill Show of the Season

Ceca flew into Montenegro a day earlier, on Saturday afternoon, August 8. She arrived at Tivat airport in wide-legged pants, a short top and Gucci sandals with a high heel. She had two words for the reporters waiting for her.

Good to see you all, I’m ready.

Asked about the sandals, she laughed and admitted what was bothering her.

My pant legs are too long, I’m going to take a fall.

She walked onstage around half past midnight, in a long silver dress slit to the hip and high heels, with minimal jewelry. It was her second show at that club this season.

Between the two performances, she had not been in Serbia. The timeline ran like this:

• July 17: her first Top Hill show of the season
• July 15: her grandson Ilijan, son of her daughter Anastasija, was born
• after the show, she flew to Spain to be with her daughter and grandson
• August 8: she returned and gave her second show in Budva

Before leaving, she had spoken carefully about the baby and about why the pregnancy had been kept quiet. She said it had been the parents’ decision, and that the people close to her had respected that wish, so nothing leaked to the public before the family announced it themselves.

What Comes Next

The question of who wrote “Beograd” is not settled by this. Ceca has given her version, Merlin’s version stands from earlier, and neither of them has said anything yet about how the song is actually credited on the record or in the copyright registry. That is the one document that would close the argument, and neither side has put it on the table so far.

For now there are two statements and one hit that audiences still sing every time they hear it, in Budva as much as in Belgrade.