Arsen Dedić was born in Šibenik in 1938. He started studying law in Zagreb but dropped out in 1959 to go to the Music Academy, also in Zagreb, where he graduated in 1964. Dedić wrote poems and composed songs through most of his life and started his singer-songwriter career in the mid-1960s. He made his debut as a solo artist at the Zagreb festival of popular music in 1963. Prior to that he performed as a flute-player in pop and jazz bands, sang in several vocal groups such as Prima, Zagreb Vocal Quartet, Melos and led the instrumental Flute Quartet. Songs Moderato cantabile and House by the Sea from 1964 marked the beginning of his musical opus and traced the direction of his style as a songwriter.
He composed French-style chansons and became a local trademark of that musical genre, which merges his key artistic outlets – music and poetry. He earned an international reputation by the early eighties and collaborated with prominent poets-singers such as Sergio Endrigo, Gino Paoli and Bulat Okudžava. Along with more than forty albums, he left behind a number of recognizable melodies for the theatre, film and television and wrote scores for about 200 theatre plays. Dedić also wrote poetry and authored some 20 collections of poems.
Arsen Dedić dedicated most of his time to composing, playing instruments, conducting, writing and translating. He is often referred to as the founder of the Croatian chanson and won a number of awards in different categories during his lifetime. Some of them are: Ivo Tijardović in 1979, Prix Jacques Brel in 1979, Premio Tenco in San Remo in 1982, recognition Premio Recanti in 1991, Porin for life achievement in 1999, Goranov vijenac in 2003, Kiklop in 2009 and in 2013, two Zlatna Arena (Golden Arena) awards as a well as many other awards. He died in Zagreb in 2015.