“Strindberg and Helium in the park”
Anyone see the movie about mountain climbers called “Touching The Void“? One of them falls down an abyss and the other, being pulled down by what he thinks is the dead man’s body, cuts him loose. The fallen climber though has survived with a broken leg. He must make his way out of the pit and across the frozen tundra with a broken leg. While narrating the story of how he did this, he remarks that, as an atheist, he wondered if he would start believing in God. He reports that he did not. He reports further that during his ordeal, he was pestered by a song by Boney M playing endlessly in his head. This confirmed what I’ve long believed, that the Divine has a great sense of humor.
Boney M , “Hooray! Hooray!” (1979)
- Mary Gaitskill
thanks for recovering this video! love it and have been trying to find it for eons
Boney M’s arrival in Moscow in 1978 was the USSR equivalent of the Beatles appearing on Ed Sullivan. My family in Siberia says that all Boney M songs have entered the pantheon of Russian folk songs. You hear them everywhere.
They were the first rock group to be paid in money rather than goods in the USSR. They wrote a special song for the trip, Rasputin:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvDMlk3kSYg
Look at this USSR TV audience — still, serious , and scared. They don’t act like this when they listen to Boney M at home:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmjdZKfumEI