Wednesday, June 02, 2004

Everybody wants to be a macho macho man
To have the kind of body that's always in demand

Hey! Hey! Hey, hey, hey!
Macho, macho man (macho man)
I've got to be, a macho man
Macho, macho man
I've got to be a macho! Woo!

--- Extract from the Muppets' take on the Village People's Macho Macho Man

Too bad I only have the MP3. I suspect the video would be hilarious. I suspect it's making fun of the song, because a bird squawks: "you're a bunch of sissies!"

***

Unable to hide "Sarah" (his sggirls "girlfriend") from inquisitive eyes anymore, Quanteng is now claiming that they broke up.

Right.

***

I download an MP3 of The Music's Always There With You from a Hong Kong choir's page, and the piano introduction sounds exceedingly familiar. Then, a familiar sinister operatic voice starts singing.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

"The songs below are sung by other choirs or singers, for you all to listen and improve your singing, enjoy!" - (...)


On the bright side, I found 阿拉木汗 (Alamuhan) on another Hong Kong Choir's page (The Chinese University of Hong Kong Student Chorus). I wasn't as enthused by the titles of some of the communist songs they have (eg "運動員進行曲" and "兵車行"), but when I downloaded the former, I found that it was the tune that my Communist Primary School (Nanyang Primary School) played to mark the end of recess!!!

The shock almost sent me into a state of apoplexy. The official name of the song in English, by the way, is "Athletes March - The Composition Group of the Military Band of the People’s Liberation Army of China, arranged by Ma Ge-shun", so Tim tells me.

"Under the initiative of Mao Tse-tung, the Military Band of the People’s Liberation Army of China, affiliated to the General Politics Department of the People’s Liberation Army, was established in 1952. Since its establishment, the Composition Group of the Band composed and arranged numerous works for symphonic band. The Athletes March is a famous one among them. The Composition Group wrote three versions of Athletes March, the second version, which will be performed tonight, was premiered in November 1971 at the Asia- Africa- Latin America Table Tennis Friendship Tournament. Since then, this March is widely used for various athletic activities in Mainland China. It is also widely used as the opening, closing and entr’acte music in ceremonies. This four-part a cappella arrangement performed tonight is made by Professor Ma Ge-shun, a famous choral conductor and music educator."

Makes you wonder how Nanyang survived the communist purge in the 50s.

Incidentally, their version of the Rutter piece is torturously slow, by the way, but I can't hear any Honkie accents. Amazing!


Further searching uncovered a CD with a Korean version. I listened to the AU preview and was speechless.

***

"Eliminate your bills the christian way"



Whee. Now I get Christian debt relief spam. Back, you demons!

***

PhotoRescue - Salvation if you format your CF card by mistake

Tony's Spud Gun Page - As suggested by Michelle, a commenter
blog comments powered by Disqus