Sunny spring weather (for the last couple of days, at least). Love is in the air (or so the common wisdom dictates – I don’t feel any more amorous than usual). It feels fitting to choose a well-known love song for the next helping of my musical memories. In fact,…
Having watched Across the Universe a couple of days ago, I find myself constantly humming my favorite Beatles’ tunes. All You Need Is Love is one of the more obvious ones. I actually have a vague memory related to this song that includes an auditorium full of students and the…
All pretense of being seasoned travelers aside, Natasha and I only started to make regular trips abroad in 20021. Our first voyage was to France, with almost a week in Paris followed by a jaunt around Loire Valley castles and French Riviera destinations. We fell in love with Paris on…
In the last couple of years before my emigration from the USSR, I used to frequent the sole Rostov synagogue. Not out of any sort of religious interest, mind you, but purely for social reasons. Perestroika brought some measure of respite to formerly suppressed ethnic identities within the empire, and…
I first heard this song not in its original form but as a Russian language “remix” by Sergej Minaev, whose repertoire in late 80’s consisted largely of jocular takes on popular “foreign” songs. Not translations to any degree, his numbers normally used only a key refrain or an image from…
It’s been a dismal week so far, and I need a pick-me-up. So, I’m branching out of my regular memories on YouTube series, to better include songs that do not necessarily constitute a specific memory (to be honest, some of my entries in the “memories” feature were not truly associated…
Around the time that I was entering high school, breakdance was all the rage. The guys my age were always trying to outdo one another and impress the girls with their moves in discotheques. Breakdance carried the aura of rebellion – I don’t think that it was officially prohibited, but…
After greeting Christmas just a week ago with the song that I most associated with Christmas in my youth, I figured that I need to do the same for the New Year’s. At least, as far as the English language goes. Never mind that it’s sung by a quartet of…
Christmas to me is just another day off, its significance nowhere near that of the New Year’s Eve. But I do enjoy the musical component of the holidays, with all those Winter Wonderland, Let It Snow and Jingle Bells songs constantly on air. Hell, I sing along to Rudolph the…
Back to obscure European pop of the 70’s and the 80’s for this series. I’ve been hearing this particular song fairly regularly over the last couple of years, as it features on the Euro collection disk that we like to play in the car on long drives. I have not…
One of my camp summers happened after I just turned ten, on the Black Sea coast near Anapa. For reasons not exactly clear to me, the placement committee at the beginning of the camp term assigned me to a “force” of mostly 12-year-olds. Thinking back, I wonder if it was…
I mentioned a few times in this series the notion of my own very first cassette tape. In fact, there were two of them. Both were recorded for me by my Uncle, who owned a Sharp dual-deck stereo recorder – a rarity in those days. While he was aware of…
I’ve only noticed in passing that I am not a very willing dancer. At any given party, when the dancing floor becomes the focus of the celebration, I am still more likely to be found at a seat by the table, hopefully with a similarly-minded friend, spending time in idle…
Towards the very end of the 80’s, the Soviet television started incorporating little bits of Western culture into its late-night programming. Among the teenage crowd, Saturday night MTV hit-parade quickly became a must-see event. I’m pretty sure that the charts were European, rather than American, but the difference mattered little…
One of the gifts that Becky received this year for her birthday was a recording studio experience (idea by Mom, funding by Grandma and Grandpa). She enlisted a couple of her friends as a personal gallery and went the other day to record three songs of her choice. I have…
One of the most important dates in my life is the day I met Natasha. We were really young then, yet somehow managed to recognize that we were meant for each other, if not at first sight, then definitely at the second one. We actually saw one another for the…
This is not, as it were, a memory. I am a singing person. I sing when I walk, hum when I’m idle, and frequently burst into vocalization when I’m at home (oh yes, I always sing in the shower!). I know lyrics to thousands of songs – mostly Russian, but…
The other day we went with friends for a dinner to a trendy place in Mayfair. The meal itself was exceptional, the company was extraordinary, and live entertainment – first a virtuoso keyboardist and then a belly dancer – made the evening all the more fun. Among the songs played…
Many thanks, Michelle, for your postcard with a magnificent view of the Teton Range in the Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. As I never tire of repeating, sights like that help feeding my wanderlust. I actually have been re-living some of our recent travels by converting travel diaries into…
Back to more obscure stuff for the American-born audience, here is a guy who enjoyed a cult status when I was growing up. Aside from being a pretty good crooner – and he could move, too, – Adriano Celentano starred in several French and Italian movies that were tremendously popular…