In the beginning was a rhythmless Irish ballad. Leadbelly liked the melody but added some punchy rhythm and chords. Pete Seeger adds words and records the first version with the Weavers:
Along comes Nana Mouskouri, who records a German version of the song in 1967.
No, I don't know why there's an (apparently eyeless) dog in that video. Just be glad GEMA hasn't blocked it.
And then in 2005 or so, the criminally underrated Nottingham techno duo Bent use the queer warbling of Moskouri as the basis for K.i.s.s.e.s.
So there you have it. An Irish melody, reworked by a black American blues singer, lyrics added by a leftist white folk-singer, translated loosely into German by a Greek, and then processed into an ethereal techno track by Englishmen.
Thanks for posting the bent track; good stuff! The correct year, an internet search suggests, is 2000.
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Thanks for posting the bent track; good stuff! The correct year, an internet search suggests, is 2000.
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