Gloomy Sunday

[Bordertangoman]

Mratschnoje Woskresenje - Pjotr Leschenko

"In February 1936 in Budapest, when a man who had committed suicide left behind a farewell letter citing the lyrics of a 3 year old, then little known Hungarian song, a legend was born. And it's certainly no coincidence that one year before another legend had embraced the same song, given it Russian lyrics and recorded it - Pjotr Leschenko, the charismatic singer of tangos and gypsy romances, then well on his way to conquering the whole of Europe from his exile in Bucharest. On the one hand, the ballad of "Gloomy Sunday" which subsequently threatened to turn into a kind of anthem for those in danger of suicide and which was consequently banned from the airwaves in Hungary, the USA and Great Britain; on the other, the Russian patriot Leschenko, banned from returning to his mother-country because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time (namely in Bessarabia during the Rumanian occupation) and whose musical style was lambasted as decadent and bourgeois by the Soviet cultural authorities - lambasted despite the enormous popularity he enjoyed in Russia where his records were smuggled in, sold and copied illegally. A good case can be made that the impact of the song is not only due to its lyrics. The author of the English version with the title "Gloomy Sunday", which has been sung and recorded by such artists as Billie Holiday, Elvis Costello and Marianne Faithfull, added a third verse in an attempt to alleviate the pessimistic mood - all in vain. "

amazon

[elisedance]

and is there somewhere convenient to hear this?  in any language?

[QPO]

yes cant say I know this

[Bordertangoman]

i choons has 100+ covers I reckomend Paul Robeson, Diamanda Galas, and Pjotr Leschenko

[QPO]

will search it later and listen