You know what makes me laugh? All the Swedes, Germans and Dutchman who just LOVE the idea of being COWBOYS. What a bunch of...WILD AND CRAZY GUYS. Did you ever hear of Mats Radberg? He had a hit with a Shel Silverstein song called "Put Another Log In the Fire." It was "Peta In En Pinne I Brasan."
If you've been around this blog for any length of time, you know I have a perverse fondness for familiar American songs sung in foreign languages. Most people don't pay much attention to lyrics, but I find it pretty odd when a familiar melody is accompanied by (to me, not to the star's home-based fans) gibberish. Somehow the singer usually gives you some kind of emotional response -- same way most can listen to an opera aria and get the idea Pavarotti is a very sad clown, or Roberta Peters has just gone nuts -- without checking the libretto.
When I used to forage the bargain bins (I mean the REAL bargain bins, like 2-for-$1 or 3-for-$1 or 25 cents each) I'd find obscure foreign records and check the songwriter credits. If I saw a foreign title but recognized an American songwriter's name (and the added name of whoever wrote the foreign lyrics) I bought it.
You might think ol' Mats is about to launch into "Okie from Muskogee" but no, it's Uncle Shelby singing one of his songs that melds stupid Southern shit-kicker idiocy with Jewish pathos. The shit-kicker part:
Cook me up some bacon and some beans.
And go out to the car and change the tyre.
Wash my socks and sew my old blue jeans.
The Jewish pathos part:
Come on, baby, you can fill my pipe,
And then go fetch my slippers.
And boil me up another pot of tea.
Then put another log on the fire, babe,
And come and tell me why you're leaving me.
I'm sure that Radberg captured all the nuances while singing in Swedish. Yah. And if he was getting no royalties thanks to Sweden's Pirate Bay, oh well. He did make some bucks back in 1983 when the above song was recorded, and nobody could copy it all over the Internet and declare "copyright is copy WRONG" or "music should be FREEEEEEEE." He made about a dozen albums between 1969 ("Country Our Way" with his Rankrama Rank Strangers band) and 1983. He made only three albums in the past decades of piracy "When We Were Young" in 1996, "100% Mats Radberg & Rankama" in 2002, and "Nashville" in 2014. But I'm sure he was still doing concerts and sweating for his salary with those, and maybe after, he sold t-shirts and hats.
Adios, Mats. At least you made it past your birthday: June 8, 1948 - June 27, 2020
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