This is the incomparable, wonderful and generally amazing Ivan Rebroff performing Katyusha live in Australia in 1982:
embed:
Ivan Rebroff is my hero. He is sadly dead now, but just look at the guy! He could sing across 4 octaves. In this concert he sings in English, German and Russian. He is the size of a bear, and his beard is as furry as his wonderful hat! Look at his facial expressions! Marvel at the music! See the sheer size of that big bass balalaika! The song is BRILLIANT! Everything about this makes me glad to be alive.
I am learning how to sing Katyusha in Russian at the moment. I can sing it pretty well, but I currently need the lyrics in front of me. I'm not really sure what to do with this skill once I've perfected it- I'd like to record a version of the song with Skankhammer, and maybe do a little animated video with a tiny mouse singing it in heroic style or something. We'll see.
Skanks claims that not everybody in the world shares my obssession with all things Russian, but I think he is wrong, or mental. Probably both. How could anyone not love this wonderful, wonderful song sung by this wonderful wonderul man?
This is the best thing I have seen in a very, very long time. Brilliant! BRILLIANT I SAY! I want a go so badly. I have to go to this festival. It is the best festival ever! Let's all tape bombs to sledge hammers and smash them into the ground to BLOW THEM THE FUCK UP!
YEEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
This is simultaneously the best and also the worst idea anyone has ever had.
I have been spending some time lately looking at lyrics of soviet songs, as per that post down there, and I ended up wondering what North Korean song lyrics might be like. A quick look exposed me to the bonkers world of North Korean youtube vids and blogs. I had no idea that such things existed - but my life is richer now that I have found them. North Korea is well, well mental.
The youtube accounts and blogs out there are clearly state-run propaganda, but they are so incredibly badly done that they are almost a parody of themselves. It would be hilarious, if there wasn't so much human tragedy behind it. Have a look at the wonderfully mental Songun Blog:
A choice extract gives us this tale of Kim Jong Il on a visit to troops:
"[King Jong Il] stood up from all his height, his bulging muscles rippling loudly under his frock coat. Glancing around in an instant he immediately and perfectly appraised the situation at hand."
But the very best bit about it all is that we follow the crazy rhetoric about Kim Jong Il's invincibility and genius with this inexplicably camp video:
I leave you with his potrayal of North Korea, which is apparently a:
"genuinely benevolent Juche-based man-centered Korean-style socialist system of the Democratic people's Republic of Korea blessed with the flawless Songun leadership of Dear Leader Comrade Generalissimo Kim Jong Il the Heaven-born great brilliant Mt. Paektu type general born on the Sacred Mountain."
Marvel at the glory of Kalinka performed by the Red Army Choir with the Leningrad Cowboys.
This is totally amazing. AMAZING! I LOVE it with every bone in my body, and several bits that are not so much bony as merely cartillaginous.
Skankhammer doesn't share my utter joy when confronted with this. He feels that this heroic performance is either serious or not. Also, he muttered darkly about Shostakovich, and how he was denounced twice, and had his work banned numerous times, by the Soviets.
Of course times were very hard for anyone involved in any artistic endeavour under Stalin, but I can't help LOVING this kind of heroic music even if it is exactly the kind of thing Shostakovich would have hated, as Skanks asserts.
Anyway, this is only a folk song, just delivered in heroic style. For serious Stalinist music, try The Sacred War:
