Ardalan Sarfaraz

Ardalan Sarfaraz is one of the central lyricists of Iranian pop, of the generation of Shahyar Ghanbari and Iraj Jannati Atai. He wrote for Googoosh, Dariush, Sattar and Hayedeh, and his ear was for the way Tehran actually spoke: vaseh over barayeh, dooneh over daneh. Persian songwriting had centuries of formal poetry behind it and could be stubborn about register; his lines read as said rather than composed, which made them sound less arranged than the older songs and more inevitable.