A brief history lesson

(Post prompted by this).

My very first memory of a carnival was one we went to in Germany, when we were visiting my aunt and her family, the year I turned six. I was too small for most of the rides my sister and my cousin (who is the same age as my sister) wanted to go on, so I ended up spending most of the time next to their ride, hanging out with their stuff. (Our parents? Off somewhere on their own. Those were the good old days when no one thought anything of leaving a kid, who didn't speak a lick of of the local language, with some teens who were too busy flirting with the local boys to notice her except when they needed something from their bags!) I got to learn the music that was playing very, very well, which wasn't hard to do, since it had a relatively easy (and to my ears, infectious) pop beat, and the lyrics were in English. I ended up spending the rest of our stay marching around singing the songs as loudly as I could (often adding my own lyrics), driving my sister and cousin crazy. The best part? When they asked my dad to tell me to shut up, he said, in all seriousness, "Why? It sounds like she is singing about the history of different countries!" HA HA HA.

The one about "Russian history"

Rasputin - Boney M



The one about "Irish history"

Belfast - Boney M



The one about "American history"

Ma Baker - Boney M



By the way, if their sound and some of the facial expressions and moves seem familiar, it's because the man behind the band, Frank Farian (who incidentally is the male voice--digitized and otherwise--for the band (he is not the singer lipsynching, obviously)) tried the whole lipsynching singers fronting other people's voices a decade or so later. He was quite successful at it again, too--at least, until he wasn't. (You may have heard of that band, by way.)