22 February 2008

on the radio

There's a song on the radio right now (in English) that says:

Rah, rah, Rasputin
Lover of the Russian queen
(Insert line of Raputin's life story here)

Rah, rah Rasputin
Russia's greatest love machine
(Insert rhyming line of Rasputin's life story here)

It cracks me up.

The other day I heard a political announcement. (It's amazing to me how few billboards, psa's etc. are around with the election looming. Friends here are amazed at my amazement--telling me that the election means nothing, that no one will bother to vote, but that statistics will show 90% of the people supported the next president. We'll see...) What I heard was:

People of St. Petersburg
Idiot....
The President of the Russian Federation

The word for "idiot" ( Идиот) is very similar to one of the words for "coming" (Идёт). I'm guessing that this commercial was to encourage the people of St. Petersburg to go to the polls and vote for the President of the Russian Federation or tell them the next president was coming. I don't think insulting either the voters of St. Petersburg or the next president was the intent.

My Russian friends find this mis-hearing of mine hysterical and say first my impression was more accurate. ;>

7 comments:

Tami said...

Bwaaah ha ha ha! Love it! :)

Melissa said...

That is great!

Incidentally, we heard 'Rasputin' for the first time when we were in Russia. The hotel we stayed in on both our trips must've had the same loop of music playing, because it was a daily musical selection for us at breakfast!

And don't you know, when we got home, we had to find & download it! When Iliya hears it start up, he always starts dancing.

Dark song with good memories for us! ;)

Anonymous said...

I need a copy of that song.

Anonymous said...

love the selective hearing. i think maybe that "idiot" was referring to the American president instead (or should have been!)

:-)

Jim said...

I got a good laugh from this one. Thanks, Kate! I guess it doesn't matter where you live, people are always cynical about politicians and politics.

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Suzanne said...

I heard the Rah Rah song live at a concert Wednesday night. Bizarre . . .