VII - The Year Of The Puppet

This year it's 40 years ago that Sandie Shaw barefooted her way to the Eurovision stage and scored the first victory for the Royaume Uni with Puppet On A String written by Bill Martin & Phil Coulter . Sandie Shaw also celebrates a big birthday (Februari 26) this year so it's time for a party.

Like Sandie, I have been bored by the song for many years, but, again like Sandie, I changed my mind. POAS is one of the most recognizable winners of the contest and Sandie revived her career with a big international hit.

According to the 10.000 coverversions project * Puppet on a string is the Eurovision song covered in most languages and dialects (30). Over 200 versions are listed and I hope to bring you the best of those in the coming weeks. From Estonia to Jamaica and from Singapore to Iceland, and then there's the odd Barrel Organ & Acoustic folk instrumental too.
There will be artists info, music, lists, politics, record sleeves and other trivia and it will include 60's Beat versions to 80's punk and interpretations from 2006 and even 2007.

WANTED PUPPETS
From the 30 languages listed I miss a few. If anyone can help me with any of these I'd be very to happy to feature them in this project.
Hebrew - Haleytzan - Tzipi Shavit (or any other)
Italian - La danza della note by Anna Carucci (or any other)
Bayrisch (German) - Barfuss laafen - Die 2 Peterlesboum aus Nürnberg
I'm also missing any version in Japanese, Thai or Korean.

* The 10.000 covers features details on 10.000 versions of Eurovision songs.
email me if you want to know more or participate.

The Year Of The Puppet celebrates the 40 year anniversary of Sandie Shaw's Eurovision victory with Puppet On A String.
Other versions  featured are from France, Singapore (Mandarin-Chinese), Jamaica. Yugoslavia, Estonia, U.K. (Comedy), Iceland, Lithuania, USA (Musical), Spain, Brasil, UK punk, Norway (gloom) Norway, Turkey, Portugal, Basque country Organland, Tirol, Denmark, CzechoSlovakia (Czech), Hungary, Russia, Yugoslavia (Slovenia), Chile/Argentina/Mexico, Sweden, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland, Scotland, Poland, Czechoslowakia (Slovak), Trinidad*, More Jamaica and more Singapore

I would Die For You Lithuania

Mino - Be meilės mirt galiu
Lithuania are relative newcomers to the Eurovision stage and I haven't been able to find any old coverversions of Eurovision songs made in Lithuania.

But they are catching up with several versions recorded in recents years.
(Check out the Christmas Presents post for one of them)

So it's good to find a new CD which features three covers at once.
The CD in case is by Mino (Mindaugas Mickevičius), who is another Lithuanian talent show star (”Kelias į žvaigždes”.)

The album was released last november and is titled Be Meilės Mirt galiu. I don't know what it means, but the title track is a cover version of Die For You, the Greek 2001 entry by Helena Paparizou before she got rid of the bloke.
The album opens with Gitaras, which is Volare (Nel blu dipinto di blu), made famous by Domenico Modugno and about a 1000 others. In fact it is more a Gipsy Kings coverversion and on the edge of slightly annoying.

Third and best Eurocover is Noriu Turet Tave (track 3) a duet with the ever fantastic Alanas Chošnau. It's Shame On You the Danish 2004 entry by the guy in that bad red suit Thomas Thordarsson.

Other songs on the album sometimes sound familiar too, but I haven't got a clue what they are although some sound Italian and others sound like 'Die for you' part 2, so they could be any Philippe Kirkorov cover.
I haven't been able to locate a webshop that sells the album yet, so you must find that out for yourself.

Mino's fanclub is here http://minofc.com/index.php (In Lithuanian) here you can read that he is 65 kg, 1.76 m tall and that he drives a Mazda 626.

VII: Døsty Cåwshit a.k.a. Dusty Cowshit

They're in the preselection in Norway this year, Dusty Cowshit.
Their song Chicken Rodeo will be performed on januari 27 in the second heat.

Dusty Cowshit are a 10 man band who set every Norwegian barn alight with their party version of Country music.
There's only six places on the Eurovision stage, so if they're chosen to go to Helsinki Odd Evil Custer, Remi Remington, Uncle Tom Tom, Ole Hickock, Kaare Kid, Morten Kane, Petter Gun, Jo Man, Knut Kruttlapp and Stig Sundance will decide in a fistfight who will go and who will stay (or just wait and see who's sober enough)
They're not new to the Eurovision tune, as their drunken country versions (a.k.a. good old cowboy polka feeling) of the classic scandinavian entries below prove.

The Norwegian entries are from the CD 'Østenfor soon, western for råde', and they were also released on a cdsingle with Nocturne as the main track. It was a number 13 hit (5 wks in top 20) in Norway in 1996 which was the first and only time the song charted, as the original version by Secret Garden from 1995 wasn't released as a single in Norway.

Samiid Aednan - Främling - La det Swinge - Nocturne

AB/BA - AC/DC style

First of all, a great big happy VII to all Eurocovers readers, let's make it a good one!

Now to more urgent matters.

RIFF RAFF From AC/DC to ABBA

2006 was a good year for Eurovision metal. The mighty mighty Lordi won the Eurovision songcontest, and Berlin AC/DC tribute band RIFF RAFF released a CD full of abba covers.
Waterloo isn't an unexpected choice for a rock/metal band to cover, it has been done before for example by Black Ingvars (Sweden), Cloth (New Zealand), Gabba (in Ramones style), Los Enemigos (Spain) and Nation (Sweden) but it's 'interesting' to hear what AC/DC's version of I have a dream and Chiquitita would sound like.

Voicewise the bands singer Steve sticks close to the original, not ABBA, but AC/DC, and after a song or 5 it makes you wonder, why didn't AC/DC have any songs as good as this? (Just kidding guys) In all, great fun for all to be had, now all sing along: Mamma Mia, here you go to Hell....

The album is titled AB/BA - Rock'n'Roll Mutation vol. 1. (the / being a little electric flash sign thingy)

Tracklist:
Money, Money, Money
I Have A Dream
Super Trooper
Mamma Mia
Take A Chance On Me
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Winner Takes It All
Chiquitita
Dancing Queen
Waterloo

Riff Raff have their own homepage and also a My Space with music.
The CD is available from international selling Rock shop http://www.musicbuymail.com/

OST The Possible: A Ba Ni Bangkok [UPD]

OST - The Possible
If you happen to be in Thailand for Christmas, just be sure to check out the hit movie 'Gao Gao - The Possible'.

It's a comedy adventure movie about a band (The Possible) from 2512* accidentally being zipped to 2549, but there's one main reason why it's possibly the Coolest Movie Ever Made: It has a cover version of A ba ni bi! - In Thai !!

The song, now 'Ai bah Ai bee Ai bo Ai be' is performed by the band (a spoof version of popular 60s Thai band The Impossible) with main actor Joey Boy as the lead singer.
The soundtrack is released on a CD and also on a karaoke DVD.
Also includes Thai cover versions of Ring My Bell (Anita Ward) and You're my world (Cilla Black), Linda Linda (Tee Set) and a track called Wan-kerd (Del Shannons Runaway)

The CD and karaoke DVD are available from http://www.ethaicd.com/ . I bought a CD from them once which arrived in 10 days and was shockingly cheap.

The movie has it's own website http://www.possiblethemovie.com/. It's in Thai, but you can look at the pictures.

Can't wait? here it is
ไอ้บ้า ไอ้บี้ ไอ้โบ้ ไอ้เบ้ 

* According to the Thai calender it's 2549 A.B. (Anno Buddah) today
2512 was 1969 a.k.a. 14 A.E. (Anno Eurovisio)

More A Ba Ni Bi in these Eurocovers posts:
Noisy Israeli's, Harlem Yu, More A Ba Ni Bi's from Thailand

The offspring of Dschinghis Khan

Here's some lovely annoying versions of Dschinghis Khan.
It seems the Ralph Siegel classic about the man who gave his genes to 1 in every 200 men living today is still going strong and spreading now beyond the world gene pool into animation and to your cellphones.

We already had the annoying finnish cellphone chipmunk Pikku Orava and now I found two Baby versions from Korea which are equally irritating.

One has the innocent name Bebe Queen and the other is published by Dreamwiz or something (I really haven't got a clue, maybe you do???).

Both versions are just a minute long and made in 2006.
There will be more Dschinghis Khan features in the future with versions from all over the world.

-----------------------That dreamwiz version / Bebe Queen / Pikku Orava

베베퀸 Bebe Queen - 징기스칸쏭 (from cdsingle)
동방공주 Dreamwiz -징기스칸쏭 (from kids CD)
Pikku Orava - Tsingis Khan from CD 'Uusi Ceedee'

Edina Pop - Marika Késmárky

Here are some Eurovision coverversions by Dschinghis Khan member Edina Pop.
Way before the success with Dschinghis khan recorded some popular ESC tunes.

Edina Pop was born in Hungary and she made a (now collectable) LP under her own name Marika Késmárky (or Késmárky Marika as the Hungarians like to say).
The 1970 LP includes Kopp, Kopp…, a hungarian version of Knock Knock, who's there, the song made famous by Mary Hopkin.
She also recorded the same song in German as Komm, komm zu mir.

Another song she tackled is the Spanish co-winner Vivo Cantando. Her version, Zwischen Wolga und Don is an odd cover which includes a part that wasnt in the original, but that can be heard in several other covers like the one by Birthe Kjaer (Denmark) or Arie Ribbens (Netherlands).

Was soll ich tun is a coverversion of the number 4 from 1972: Als het om de liefde gaat by Sandra and Andres (Netherlands).

Edina Pop also recorded a German version of La La La, the 1968 winner by Massiel, and it seems she also recorded a solo version of Dschinghis Khan, but I have no details about these.

Edina Pop is still going strong and you can find her website here. http://www.edinapop.de/

Coming soon: 2007 - Year Of The Puppet 

Eurovision Covers For Christmas

To get into the December spirit here's two Eurovision songs reworked with Christmas lyrics.

A Snowy Jingly bellsy Christmas version of 'Gente di mare' by Tozzi and Raf is as unlikely as Ms. Claus serving Reindeercarpaccio.

So a Christmas interpretation of the Italian song can only come from Iceland, where the sun won't be seen until late in the next Eurovision season, but the people are real 'Gente di mare'.
'Komdu um Jólin' by Gunnar Olason (Olafsson) is on VA Christmas CD Jólastemming and other compilations.


'Stad I Ljus', by Chess player Tommy Körberg is a different case. The monumental hymn lends itself perfectly for the Season to be jolly and depressed at the same time.
Sofia Källgren, MF star, turns the song into 'Spread your light' which has appeared on several Christmas compilations in Sweden (100% Jul 2 (1996)and Svenska Julklassiker (2002)).
More about Sofia at http://www.sofiakallgren.com/

'Stad I Ljus' has been recorded by several gospel and religious singers over the years, most notably Christian Rivel and Michael Järlestrand, who recorded both Swedish and English versions. (files wanted)

The youngest version of 'Stad I Ljus' was recorded by the ever lovely Fame Academy student, Emil Sigfridsson, MF star, on his latest CD 'Äntligen'. The CD also includes his 2004 MF song 'Innan mörkret faller' as a bonus track.
Find out more about Emil at http://www.emilsigfridsson.se/
On his 2003 CD Emil already covered another Tommy classic 'Anthem' (from Chess).

P.S. Another Icelandic Christmas reworking is 'Stjarnar mín' by 'Íslensku Divurnar'. Thanks for the tip Stelios.
This version of Swedens Se på mig (Jan Johansen, 1995) was released on 2002 Christmas album 'Fróstrosir'(2002) and is now re-issued on a compilation 'Fróstrosir - Bestu lögin'. (sorry, don't have the song).

Addio a Flo Sandon's

Italian singer Flo Sandon's (born Mammola Sandon) died last week (17-11) at the age of 82.
She never graced the Eurovision stage but in 1953 she won the 3rd San Remo contest with Viale d'Autunno. (The song was also performed by Carla Boni)
She performed 15 songs in San Remo contests from 1953 to 1963 including a 4th place in 1954 with Notturno.

You can find all her San Remo participations detailed HERE

I haven't found any CD's collecting her work but several songs feature on all kinds of Sanremo compilations. I guess it's a matter of finding 78rpm's and EP's in your local 2nd hand store for now.
Flo Sandon's (The 's was an accident made by the designer of her first record sleeve) also covered (at least) three Eurovision tunes. Refrains, Amami Se Vuoi and Al Di Lá.

Flo Sandon's - All songs in Italian

If I Had Your Lovski

Анастасия Стоцкая, Anastasia Stotskaya, well known for her participation in the 2005 Russian selection with 'Shadows dance all around me' has recorded a Russian version of Selma's 2005 James Bond like entry 'If I had your love'.
It's titled Vso za lyubov - Все за любовь and I found it on a Russian compilation 'Созвездие хитов 7', with a Bond Babe style lady on the cover, so the circle is round. (Pic: not Anastas!a).

The Russian version has a new arrangement compared to the English language coverversion Stotskaya recorded last year, which was recorded with Selma's original instrumental recording. That demo wasn't officially released back then but I found this recording on a 200 track mp3 disc offered on internet which doesn't seem to be very official to put it mildly.

Another Eurocover, 'Music & Me', is Stotskaya's Russian version of 'I can't live without music', The Siegel song that made Corinna May make a fool of herself back in 2002...

Anastas!a was also in line for a Russian Six4One style recording of the Swiss 2006 entry 'If we all give a little', which was supposed to be recorded in Russian with 6 stars from CIS countries, but I guess that plan never substantiated.

Anastas!a: Vso za lyubov (Russian) - If I had your love - Music and Me
P.S. Anastasia should have a go at representing Russia again in the near future if you ask me. No more bad haircut guys with weird piano antics plz.