So the theme for today is “European Favorites,” and as always, when faced with a prompt like this, a lot of what I choose to feature here depends on my interpretation of the prompt. Here’s how I’m interpreting it: Songs by European artists that are favorites of mine. And, just to make things interesting, I’m not including artists from the United Kingdom or Ireland. Here goes:
- Edith Piaf, “La Vie En Rose” The classic from Ms. Piaf, this was recorded in 1956.
- Gipsy Kings, “Volare” The Gipsy Kings are gitanos, Berber-Moroccan and Spanish Gypsies who fled Catalonia to France during the Spanish Civil War. From their 1989 album Mosaique.
- ABBA, “Waterloo” Sweden’s ABBA won the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest with this entry. It was their first international hit.
- Kraftwerk, “Autobahn” I chose one of the shorter versions of this; the full song is over twenty minutes. As the name might imply, Kraftwerk is German.
- Django Reinhardt, “Echoes of France” Django is a Belgian Gypsy, a Manouche. This is from 1946, after the liberation of France. The song is based on “La Marseillaise“, the French National Anthem.
- Horst Jankowski, “A Walk In The Black Forest” Classically-trained German pianist Jankowski is best known for light pieces like this one.
- Mocedades, “Eres Tu” Another Eurovision contestant, this was Spain’s entry in the 1973 contest, but didn’t win. Nonetheless, it was an international hit, and Amaya Uranga’s voice is lovely.
- Bent Fabric, “Alley Cat” Bent Fabricius-Bjerre was born in Denmark in 1924. This was a hot single in 1962.
- The Singing Nun, “Dominique” Belgian Jeanne Deckers, who took the name Souer Sourire as a Dominican nun, had a big hit with this in the Sixties, and was played by Debbie Reynolds in the 1966 movie. Every Catholic household had a copy of the album when it came out, it seemed.
- Nena, “99 Luftballons” Title track from their 1983 album, it’s a German-language antiwar protest song.
And that’s Monday’s Music Moves Me for July 17, 2017.
Monday’s Music Moves Me is sponsored by X-Mas Dolly, Callie, Cathy, and Stacy, so be sure and visit them, where you can also find the Linky for the other participants.
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