I’d like to teach the world to sing
The BBC World Service, as part of their 70th anniversary celebrations, took a poll to see what the world’s most favorite songs ever were. The results were all over the map. It’s interesting to see the varied reactions around the world. Indian newspapers generally ran a Reuters report, but highlighted a second place finish by an Indian song in their headlines. The Cleveland Plain Dealer’s correspondent seemed wryly incensed that he knew hardly any of the songs. (Actually, I do know the tune to the second one he highlights, Vande Mataram, because All India Radio uses it when they sign on the air on their shortwave stations, and recognizing it is very handy when trying to ID weak regional Indian stations. So there.) The Irish Times, of course, highlighted an Irish group’s number 1 placement with a patriotic anti-British, pro-Republican tune, and noted the interesting fact that the group, which had recorded its song on 1964, this year broke up into different factions. (The article from The Plain Dealer ran in our local paper, The Star-Ledger, this week, where Laura noticed it, which is how I found out about this. God knows I didn’t find out about it from the BBC....)
Posted at 8:28 AM