Building An End Table

Miss Farrell and Mr. Bobby



Mama do not take my Kodachrome ...




There are things that seem to agree by going away together.
At the end of 2010, December 30 two things happened.
The first was tried in the last America Kodachrome film, color photographic film, which since 1935 has put the color in our memories. The film was even sung by Paul Simon in this Kodachrome 1973.



The song spoke of "bright colors" and "all kinds of green summer and was thinking about the world as an infinite "sunny day", while everything is "worse in black and white" (the word will be changed by Simon many years later in "better"). In the coda of the song Paul Simon advised the mother not to take his Kodachrome away for any reason. In fact, the Kodachrome colors looked brilliant, even after several years, so that anyone suspected that the lyrics could speak mildly psychotropic substances.
The second, was found dead Bobby Farrell. In St. Petersburg.
This name does not say anything now, but Farrell was the backbone of one of those groups of euro-disco that have settled thousands of suggestions who had ten to twenty years in the 70s.
This group were Boney M , I will always remember how three West Indian girls who sang songs, danced and recited more Bobby singing. The group was in fact a creation of the author and record producer Frank Farian German , who "lent" the voice of Bobby. The Boney M greatly broadened our cultural knowledge, in the same way in which we granted Kodachrome film - the first of Polaroid - to show our families in vibrant colors.
To begin with, with Daddy Cool we glimpsed the possibility that families could be a bit 'less conventional (today would call dysfunctional ). Key to understanding the text that the translation at the time he made Smiles and Songs TV in its special section - the first of the problems of love by Sigmund - Daddy Cool Daddy was translated as Frost . Not to mention the subsequent explanation, as a parent not to leave without at least a blanket seemed the stuff of the Criminal Code: The song is about a girl "crazy like a horse", but that basically wants so much to his dad. heartened by this note we'd dance.


With Boney M have been able to kind of historical Ma Baker as they failed to make hundreds of gangster movies. It was "The Cat most evil of the old Chicago " - according to the translation of Smiles and Songs TV - and the intro with the voice of formidable Farrell-Farian, a "trademark" of the group, which gave the piece a certain aura of historicity.

E 'but with Rasputin that Farian Boney M and make a masterpiece (the following happened, Rivers of Babylon, with the text based on Psalm 137 the King James Bible, if we want is more "melodic", but less sharp). Dall'intro style Santa Esmeralda complete with balalaika until text - by which we learned about the legend of the debauched monaco Rasputin at the court of Czar Nicholas II. And it was a curious dance piece that spoke of "Love Machine more powerful than Russia," which was "the queen's lover Russian", which does not regard it as "an intriguing " but only " a saint healer who would save his son . "Rasputin finally made a bad end, unable to poison him" shot him until he died . "The final entry comments Oh, Those Russians ... A perfect Bignami history that rivals with its Franco Battiato Nevsky Prospekt, where by chance we met Igor Stravinsky "


Today, in times of talent TV shows and dance competitions to the death as a structured group Boney M, with three women about to stop in front of a microphone and a man in overalls who impaillettate declama in playback e piroetta farebbe forse sorridere, ma alla fine degli anni '70 era il massimo dell'esotismo europeo in chiave disco - un gruppo delle Indie Occidentali, creati da un produttore tedesco, con un frontman delle Antille Olandesi - . Come le pellicole Kodachrome, erano brillanti e nonostante le accuse di "falsità" che allora fioccavano sulla musica disco, a rivederli adesso risultano molto più "autentici" di tanti fenomeni moderni. In questo video del 2010 Bobby Farrell interpreta se stesso: un performer che non nasconde i suoi anni - lo si vede indossare una parrucca e passare dal un completo gessato alla sua proverbiale tutina di lustrini - ma che è felice di fare quello che ha sempre fatto, fino all'ultimo. E' la miglior testimonianza che ci potesse lasciare.