how my children have been corrupted.

[ewein2412]

on their way home from Cubs, Mark and his mates were discussing where they are going for their october holidays. Mark said he was going to France, and that it's been quite a while since he has been to France.

He came into the house singing "The Last Time I Saw Paris."

Comments

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Mark is awesome. I suppose you had been listening to it a lot this summer, but still.

tanita says:

[(Anonymous)]

Okay, THAT? Is awesome. How many other eight-nine year olds can sing something from the forties just for fun??

It's still so weird to me that Scots have October holidays - but then, we have Thanksgiving, and so Brits need some kind of autumn holiday. Anyway, enjoy gay Paris...!

Re: tanita says:

[ewein2412]

in Perth it is called the "Tattie Holiday" and you are actually given the time off school so you can go out into the fields and pick potatoes (which reminds me that there are some potatoes in our garden that need harvesting!)

Re: tanita says:

[tiboribi.livejournal.com]

Is that like Pennsylvania schools giving off for the first day of deer hunting season? Only for a longe rholiday?

[estara.livejournal.com]

Aww lovely. I think the typical Paris song for Germans would be "Ganz Paris träumt von der Liebe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjRV7bcL0MU)" (All of Paris dreams of love) which is basically the German translation of Cole Porter's I love Paris.

[ewein2412]

that's lovely too, thank you for that link!

Re: tanita says:

[ewein2412]

much the same thing!

[estara.livejournal.com]

You're welcome ^^. I went on a Caterina Valente youtube binge afterwards. We had some really great entertainers in the 50s, but she actually was successful in the UK and the US, too. And played all kinds of instruments and in films...

Amazing woman.

[estara.livejournal.com]

I mean just look at her going here with Ella. What did they need that Perry Como for, anyway: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sbY2w8pTZ4

[ewein2412]

that is just a FABULOUS recording!

[ewein2412]

this just slays me-- Belafonte in German. She's great!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyRm5kc9ZUY&NR=1&feature=fvwp

[estara.livejournal.com]

See, that's what I grew up with before Private TV channels in the 80s (which meant MTV). We had occasional, once monthly tv shows playing international music hits, but most of it was those hits translated into German and sung by our "Schlagersänger" (Pophit singers).

Sometimes the translation was fine, but most often.... oh dear.

And that tradition started right after the war so we have all kinds of singers successful at the time - Caterina was one of the few who had her own TV show in the 50s and 60s (Bonjour Catherine) and starred in musical movies.

What I like about the Schlagersänger backgrounds is that we had people from all kinds of countries becoming famous for singing in German ^^. Australians, Jugoslavian, UK, Danish, French, Greek are nationalities I remember right off the top of my head.

I wish some other singers who had a gift for Jazz had been able to be as successful as Caterina in the original language (Bill Ramsey was a former US soldier and had a lovely jazz voice, Peter Alexander was Austrian with a lovely baritone voice and very successful in musicals, but he mostly sang Schlager).

Also: Did you see how much of a Diva she became? Here's a live performance in London from 1975 where she does Malaguena (in Spanish of course, I think she spoke three or four languages) and The Breeze and I (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_fAJhFokgU).

[elswhere1.livejournal.com]

At least he wasn't singing "The Last Time I Saw Richard"...