Sad London bye bye bye

Lovely mysterious Amy Winehouse, you told us you were trouble. But how come you couldn't get past 27 years?

French Eurovision candidate

Maybe, in proposing Amaury Vassili—a smart young good-looking candidate with a marvelous tenor voice—France is playing with fire. If ever we were to win, it would be disastrously expensive for the République. [The winning nation has to organize, host and foot the bill for the following year's contest. Consequently, observers have often said that France has always been quite content not to win.]

Here is my rough English-language version of the lyrics, based upon a translation of the Corsican into French:

Dream

I dream of those lips
of that soft pure voice
Above all, I remember you
And that night beside you

I dream, I weep in sorrow
In my heart, spring has gone
In my life, I await tomorrow
Kneeling, gazing at the sea

I shared the world with you
But you did not wish to join me
I would have sung in victory
Far away from you, I still find you
close to me, and I dream of you

I would have sung, it was your song
The song of you and me
I am so weary now that
I ask the heavens to let me die
on a summit, where I would be facing you
where I would awake from this dream
If you die, then take me with you

Joan Baez sings an Australian song

The ballad entitled And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda was written in 1971 by Eric Bogle, a Scotsman who had emigrated to Australia in 1969. I heard it soon after, and often used to sing it, late of an evening, accompanying myself on the guitar, at Le Petit Gavroche in the Marais district of Paris. The Joan Baez version dates from 2008.

The haunting female voice is surprising in the case of a soldier's song, like certain illustrations in the video, but the overall result is impressive.

Two singers, two different versions of a song

Here's the original version of Fuck You from the US singer whose stage name is Cee Lo Green:



Click the following image of a 22-year-old student named Anna to watch her performing a sign-language version of this song in playback:

Apparently Anna is not at all speech-impaired or deaf. She simply decided to learn sign language as a personal endeavor, to enhance her communication skills and to broaden her contacts with others.

Mélanie's song

For old-timers like me, this remains a memorable song:



Melanie shouldn't complain about what YouTube has done to her song.

If the people are buying tears, I'll be rich some day.

All the way from the Sun

Old-timers of my generation still have a slight moral problem adjusting to Germany. If my parents had told me an unbelievable bedtime story (which they never did, because they weren't that kind of parents), it might have been about Auschwitz. Memories of Hitler still alarm me viscerally, and prevent me from opening up my heart spontaneously to any and all messages that might be designated as Teutonic. Having said that, I must talk of today. It goes without saying that we can now listen—we must listen—to sounds that are infinitely removed ("all the way from the Sun") from the Nazi era. The Scorpions, for example:



The pure Germanic voice (in English!) of their vocalist Klaus Meine is surely that of Goethe, before the Fall. He might be Young Werther. In any case, Klaus Meine and his Scorpions are surely Young Europe. And they're about to set out on a final world tour.