I recently got caught up in the Turkish television series Diriliş: Ertuğrul, translated as Resurrection: Ertuğrul. So caught up, that this usual non-watcher just finished season one, which has 76(!) ~40-minute episodes (broken down from its original, 26 episodes for shorter-attention-span Americans). I didn’t know anything about the series when I started it; I was…
Tag: culture
Fun via Funicular in Funiculì, Funiculà
A fun Italian (Neapolitan) song on this week’s episode of GlobeSongs. “Funiculì, Funiculà” was written to celebrate the opening of the cable railway (funicular) up Mt. Vesuvius, and won first prize at the 1880 Piedigrotta Festival. It has since become nearly cliché as an Italian song, even though it was written not in standard Italian,…
À la Claire Fontaine
Discover this lovely French folk song (translation: “By the Clear Fountain”) and its variations in Canada and the Caribbean in this week’s episode of GlobeSongs, and decide for yourself whether this song may be connected to the Beatles’ “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da.”
Víctor Jara’s “Te Recuerdo Amanda”
New on GlobeSongs this week is the lovely Chilean folk song “Te Recuerdo Amanda,” by Víctor Jara, which I first heard while studying abroad in Santiago, Chile in 2002. Did you know that former military dictator Augusto Pinochet, in whose 1973 coup Jara and many others were murdered, was at that time living as a…
“What Have We Done?” (“Senzeni Na?”)
This week on GlobeSongs, a South African traditional funeral song that played an important role in the anti-apartheid movement and is of continued relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement today.
Discovering “Dona, Dona”
This week I’ve been busy researching the folk song “Dona, Dona” and learning the first verse and chorus in the original Yiddish. Did you know that it is not a traditional Yiddish folk song, but rather, was written for a Yiddish theatrical production in the 1930s? Learn more on the latest episode of GlobeSongs:
La Bamba
The third GlobeSongs episode features a look at the origins of the well-loved Mexican son jarocho style folk song “La Bamba.” To be notified of future episodes, subscribe to the GlobeSongs channel on YouTube.
GlobeSong 2: Tu Ase Turpa Ikavi
The second episode of my new YouTube series, GlobeSongs, is out. I’m discussing and singing the Georgian folk song, “Tu Ase Turpa Ikavi,” also known as “Satrpialo.” Enjoy, and let me know if you have any feedback on how to improve the series.
New Series: GlobeSongs
Hey y’all (as they say around these parts), I’m starting a new YouTube series called GlobeSongs, and have just uploaded the first video. Each episode, I will sing a different folk song from around the world and give it context, considering themes of culture, language, and geography. First up is the Scottish/Irish folk song, “Wild…
Keeping Unscheduled, On Purpose
I keep reading people recommending sticking to a schedule as a way to get through the home-bound time of coronavirus, but I beg to differ. Sure, I think it’s important to get enough sleep, so I could see sticking to a bedtime and wake-up routine, but overall, I find that not having a schedule is…