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Wanderlust
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El Burro: Discovering the world on the back of a donkey. Yeah Jung you are right, riding a donkey is definitely an interesting experience. For the poorer population the donkey is a useful alternative to a horse: a donkey costs less than a horse, is cheaper to maintain, on the other hand of course quite headstrong and not quite as elegant as a horse. Oh, and you have to make sure that your feet don’t drag on the ground when you ride on it ????.
PS: In our region recently donkey hikes are also offered as a leisure or vacation pleasure. No, no, you don’t ride on a donkey, but instead you are given a map with a circular route in one hand and the donkey’s leash in the other. And then the organizer wishes you good luck and indeed: most participants really manage to be back before nightfall. Sandra and a friend did such a hike somewhere in the Netherlands last year. I did not participate. Why should I walk around with a donkey? I have myself.
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With this song we are already back in Mexico (although Fernando Correia Marques is a portuguese singer, it really doesn’t matter…), where we have already met Consuelo Velázquez and her wonderful song “Besame Mucho”.
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Carlos Santana, a compatriot of Consuelo Velázquez, was born in 1947 in Jalisca. He gained great popularity in 1970 with his instrumental “Samba pa Ti” which roughly translated means “Samba for you”.
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Juergen, the Twins did a nice version of Samba pa’ ti way back in the beginning. Nice find. Your best forum topic has no limits.
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Hello Tom, very nice to hear from you again. I hope you are fine. We are missing you. Thanks for the hint. The cover version of Mona and Lisa was off my radar now. ????
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Hi Jurgen, those two donkey videos are hilarious, especially that first Pink Panther one. And they look great with sunglasses.
I’ve been to Mexico quite a few times over the years, Puerto Vallarta and Baja Caliifornia on the west coast a lot, and Cancun and Tulum on the east coast. Cancun was a company sponsored trip that was especially special back in 2012. Always enjoyed the beauty of Mexico when I was down there. In Cancun the company put us all up in a beautiful resort, and I remember we had a place with a balcony overlooking canals that joined the suites, and it looked so tropical and beautiful with nature all around, but there were crocodiles in the canal, so you dared not jump in the canal!
I didn’t know Samba Pa Ti was Carlos Santana’s first big song that made him famous. A great instrumental work, I adore MLTs version. A young Lisa is spot on every single rich beautiful note with her superb guitar work. To be honest I feel more in her playing than Santana himself. I remember a few years ago driving back home from the interior of British Columbia playing this one song from MLTs 2007 concert CD on the road trip over and over it was so good. Nice pick Jurgen.
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Hi Jung,
thank you for your travel report from Mexico. I liked it very much. In our media, unfortunately, only a rather one-sided image of Mexico is created. The image is shaped by western movies or road movies from more recent times: desert and loneliness. Dusty roads, tumbleweeds driven by the wind and small sleepy villages. The inhabitants and the local culture are reduced to a minimum. Mostly they serve only as extras. Too bad, where the country has so much more to offer. I would love to visit the Mayan pyramadiums on site.
My personal conviction: Whoever has the financial and time possibilities to travel should do so. Since I started exploring the world many years ago, my view of the world has fundamentally changed. My life has become so much richer and more beautiful. And those who don’t have the opportunity to travel should at least take the time to be interested in other cultures. This is the only way to break down prejudices. Travel connects. Music too. Traveling and the music you encounter along the way opens the gates to distant places and makes you love the hearts of the people you meet there.
“Imagine there are no countries. It isn’t hard to do,…,And the world will live as one“
– John Lennon –
“I haven’t been the same since I saw the moon shine on the other side of the world.“
– Mary Anne Radmacher –
PS: Lisa does some really great guitar work on Samba pa’ ti. Especially considering how young she was when the live concert took place.
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South of Cuba lies the smaller sister island Jamaica. Wanderlust and Jamaica go well together. The name derives from the Arawak Xaymaca or Chaymakas, which means something like “source country” or “wood and water country”. White beaches, turquoise sea and palm trees gently swaying in the wind. Is it all just clichés? Maybe, but still a nice illusion. Jamaica and the capital Kingston: A small Caribbean island that has written music history. The music styles ska and reggae emerged there. And of course the famous rum.
„I haven’t been everywhere yet, but it’s on my list.“
– Susan Sontag –
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The singer Harry Belafonte was born in Harlem in the New York City borough of Manhattan. His father was a sailor and came from Martinique. His mother was Jamaican. In 1935, he moved back with his mother and two older brothers to their native Jamaica.
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“The Tide is High” was performed by the New York band Blondie in 1980, making the song famous around the world and scoring a hit on the charts. Less known is that the original version was written and recorded in 1967 by the Jamaican singing trio “The Paragons“.
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What songs come to mind when you think of Jamaica?
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Regrettably my experience with Jamaican music is only second-hand, but here’s what I’ve got stored back in the cobwebby corners of my mental library:
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Hey David,
thanks for the two music contributions. Weird Al Yankovic is as you know him: really weird, but funny. Yeah, trade the shack on the beach for a condo and the ocean for the health spa.
I don’t know the movie „Back to the Beach“, but it’s a nice transition to ska. Thanks to the cobwebby corners of your mental library. Coincidentally, I have already prepared something on the subject of ska ???? :
The Caribbean island of Jamaica is the birthplace of two styles of music: reggae and ska. The history of the music style ska began in the late 1950s. Initially, it was a purely Jamaican music, which expressed the attitude to life of the population. Later, elements of Western music were incorporated, such as rhythm & blues, jazz and boogie-woogie. Guitar, bass, drums, piano/organ, wind instrument, these were the classic instruments of the early ska bands. Characterized for this style is the emphasis on the offbeat and the fast way of playing, which significantly distinguishes ska from reggae. The Skatalites were one of the first Jamaican ska bands to bring this music to the world.
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Paul McCartney wrote “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” in a Jamaican ska style. „Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da“ tells the story of Desmond and his sweetheart Molly. With this song, Paul McCartney supposedly paid tribute to the Cuban ska musician and composer Desmond Dekker, with whom he was also friends (so say some sources, Paul McCartney says something else…) True or not true, in any case a nice story.
„I had a friend called Jimmy Scott who was a Nigerian conga player, who I used to meet in the clubs in London. He had a few expressions, one of which was, ‘Ob la di ob la da, life goes on, bra’. I used to love this expression… He sounded like a philosopher to me. He was a great guy anyway and I said to him, ‘I really like that expression and I’m thinking of using it,’ and I sent him a cheque in recognition of that fact later because even though I had written the whole song and he didn’t help me, it was his expression. It’s a very me song, in as much as it’s a fantasy about a couple of people who don’t really exist, Desmond and Molly. I’m keen on names too. Desmond is a very Caribbean name.“
Paul McCartney
Anthology
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Desmond Dekker (so the Desmond from the song „Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da“, or even not…) celebrated one of his greatest international successes with the song “Isrealites”.
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The Banana Boat Song is an old Jamaican folk song, the most famous version of which was sung by calypso singer Harry Belafonte. The song goes back to an old Jamaican folk song called „Day dah light“, about stevedores (dock workers for loading and unloading) who loaded bananas in night shifts and sang about their work. They experienced daybreak and the end of the shift that came with it: Daylight come and me wanna go home. This refrain, like the melody, is common to all early, traditional versions of the song. The verses varied, however, and were often probably made up on the fly.
The term tallyman (Come Mister Tally Man, tally me banana) appearing in the song lyrics refers to the load inspector who counted the number of “hands” on a “banana bunch” (fruit stand), as workers were paid according to the quantity of bananas delivered: Six hand, seven hand, eight hand, bunch! A “bunch” was a “bundle” with more than eight “hands”.
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Talking about Jamaica: This guy couldn’t be missing. Bob Marley and his band “The Wailers” became known for their reggae music in the 70s. The early pieces of the band were influenced by the popular, fast and danceable ska. However, that all changed when Bob Marley met musician and producer Lee Perry. He had a significant influence on the music of Bob Marley and his band: the beat of the songs was slowed down and reggae was born.
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Ah, calypso music! We played a calypso song in my first band concert in middle school. It was my first exposure to the genre and I loved it, although I don’t think the song was of Jamaican origin. I was especially intrigued by the weird chord that it ended on, which I now know was a Csus4.
This is the only band version of the song that I could find on YouTube. It’s from 2019, so apparently kids are still getting to groove to it:
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