Nyet a dry eye to be found....

[captainsblog]

For an old fart, I do pretty well keeping track of the memes. I've Rickrolled myself on at least one occasion; Disaster Girl and Tourist Guy have looked in on my worst moments; I saw what you did there; and I've been living with Disapproving Cats since 1988, only 17 years or so than I've been aware of Disapproving Wonkas.

Yet, I'm sad to say, I never knew of Trololo Guy in life, but only in death.  Which occurred yesterday, just in time for the Interwebs to come alive again with the performance that can only leave you as he found himself: speechless.

I warn you: his appearance in this, which has to be seen as much as heard, will eyeworm you as badly as the inevitable earworm:

This explains it all about as well as anything:




Eduard Anatolyevich Khil (Russian: Эдуард Анатольевич Хиль; 4 September 1934 – 4 June 2012) was a Russian baritone singer and a recipient of the People's Artist Award of the RSFSR. Khil became known to a western audience in 2010 when a 1976 recording of him singing a non-lexical vocable version of the song "I Am Glad, 'Cause I'm Finally Returning Back Home" (Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой) became an Internet meme, known as "Trololololololololololo" or "Trololo".

...

The song was written by Arkady Ostrovsky. Besides Khil, it was also performed by Valery Obodzinsky, Hungarian singer János Koós, and by Muslim Magomayev on the Little Blue Light program in the Soviet Union.According to Khil, the Trololo song originally featured lyrics which described a narrative about a cowboy riding a horse to his farm:

        I'm riding the prairie on my stallion, a mustang as such, and my sweetheart Mary now knits a stocking for me, a thousand miles away from here.
        Я скачу по прерии на своем жеребце, мустанге таком-то, а моя любимая Мэри за тысячу миль отсюда вяжет для меня чулок

Arkady Ostrovsky's son, Mikhail, gives another version of the vocalise story:

    Nobody banned its lyrics, but my father just composed the music during the period of his disagreement with Lev Oshanin. The latter told him that the lyrics are more important in a song and that a composer is nothing without a lyricist. So Dad told him during the argument, "Well, I don't need your verses at all, I'll manage without them."
    —Mikhail Ostrovsky, Rossiyskaya Gazeta




So there you have it.  Funeral services are scheduled for tomorrow, with burial to follow in Moskva Central Cemetery. In lieu of flowers, the world is asked to join at 1200 Moscow local time for a moment of yeh-yeh-yeh-yeh-yehs.

Comments

[bluesilverkdg.livejournal.com]

I had never heard of him until around Christmas time, when one of my friends posted the video! How'd we miss all that??