Anniversary number two, with an unexpected surprise

[greatbearmd]

Jeff and I met 14 years ago on October 23, 2000. That was yesterday (Thursday). Until we got married, Oct. 23 was our "unofficial official" anniversary date, one we'd always celebrate with a dinner out. While our marriage date has become the "official" anniversary, we will continue to celebrate both days. Why? Well, because it's fun and nice and we

Comments

[fingertrouble]

Wow thanks for not only a great story, but introducing me to such a great song...I didn't know it. Interesting how Kenny Ball and HIS Jazzmen (me and Kirk always take the piss out of that, stressing HIS Jazzmen, not YOUR Jazzmen or MY Jazzmen, they are ALL his and his alone! ;-)) also did another foreign cover, Suki Yaki, which I know better...pop charts seemed strangely more international in the 50's & 60's despite the cold war. Strange how Gangnam Style was made out to be so unusual, when even when I was a kid songs with foreign languages sometimes made the charts, and even Japanese songs back then in the US/Europe, which I find pretty incredible.

Listening I got quite tearful, and it's not even my story! I can just imagine that beaming out on shortwave, I might try and find a recording since with the choir and phasing/skywave shifts that must've been special.

Song reminds me of my favourite Russian song from Cherubashka, Goluboy Vagon (sp?) - Голубой Вагон ?, which I think means (light?) blue train car, but oddly the first word has a queer meaning too apparently?

Anyway this is Gena the Crocodile singing it at the end of a film I have seen, it's quite odd, I think it's based on an old folk song, it gives me a similar feeling, wistful, happy yet sad, what the Portuguese call Saudade?

I've played it on the podcast and read out the translation of the lyrics...it's from 1974. Very popular in Japan and Finland because the SoyuzMultFilm got translated into those languages and shown there...

[fingertrouble]

Found it = Radio Moscow 1981:

EDIT no, that's a different song I think. This apparently was the version they used, rather upbeat?

[greatbearmd]

Yep, this is where I remember hearing it a lot. I was an avid SWL in my early years, and my Mom liked to hear what was going on at home, as it were. It played at regular intervals. Everyone knew what the song meant, apparently. The first one is definitely a different song, the second one is definitely Moscow Nights, but, well, perhaps as it would've been played on The Love Boat. LOL! That era in music touched everything in it's own unique style.

[greatbearmd]

There's something very hopeful in the lyrics of both this song and the one I linked to, yet the music carries the sadness in the background. I've long felt that Russian music is very emotional, and reflects the long suffering the Russian people have endured over the years. Though I never lived in Russia, I had my own little world of it at home, and in the early days Mom and I weren't well-to-do at all. But we had hope, we would try to overcome and did. My memories still can put me into my earliest years, and even a modern song that might be written with an old Russian music and feeling to it can send me back.

Thanks for sharing this! I had no idea it existed. It has so much warmth and innocent charm to it, but that music, well, it hits me in the gut.