
Lord knows, the man wrote some real swinging 18th century toe-tappers.
In my shifting of musical sedimentary layers, I did find some gems. (Including a CD belonging to the Sasquatch - it appears to have been in my old CD player now for approximately five or six years. Sorry, bubba!) But I also found some nightmares, too.
Like the 1989 European pressing of a 20-version Lambada CD.
20 versions of the damn Lambada.
As if one wasn't bad enough.
I have 20.

The freakiest Lambada thing I ever saw in Moscow was a TV broadcast of a grade school dance number with the little cute Russian kids gyrating in a most grown-up way, shimmying and shaking pre-pubescent booties to the song. It was wrong.
As in, "call in Chris Hansen and the Dateline NBC people" wrong. Jon-Benet wrong. Way creepy.
Despite that aberration, I associate the Lambada with a group of my friends - mostly the French Armenians - laughing and dancing up a storm in my living room. Just a bunch of dorky 20-something geeks, masquerading as sophisticated Europeans, bouncing around and giggling like idiots. It was great.
So, here I am, typing this and listening to that damn CD for the first time since, probably, 1993, when I left my place in Moscow, boxing up memories good, bad, and ugly. (Sometimes very ugly.) And, you know, stupid as the song is, it takes me back immediately to a totally different life from the one I live now. Utterly independent in a very foreign land. I can smell the Moscow perfume of cabbage, cheap tobacco and strong body odor. I can see the faces of people I haven't seen in more than a decade - some of whom I hope to never see again, others I would embrace so happily right now.
I'm gonna load this sucker up on the iPod. Don't worry Sasquatch - I won't make you listen to it in the car. This'll be for when I'm alone, driving around and feeling a little melancholy. Nothing like cheesy music - in a language you don't understand - to make you laugh.
Everybody, Lambada!
Hey, it could be worse. At least I don't own any versions of the Macarena or that mind-sucking Mambo Number Five.
Now, anybody want an unopened CD of sacred church music sung in Georgian? I can make you one heck of a deal!

3 comments:
Hey there Merujo, sorry you have been feeling under the weather. My apartment always looks like a bomb went off in it whether I am feeling well or not, though. :)
I never did listen to the Lambada much. I remember this one sitcom episode where people kept saying "The Lambada? That's the FORBIDDEN dance!" but that's about it.
However, I do have one CD with various re-mixes of the song "Tom's Diner" by Suzanne Vega called "Tom's Album." Not sure why I bought it.
Hey - Merujo
Good to see you posting again, sorry you've been feeling so crappy.
Maybe, with spring showing it's head, life will improve! I sure hope so!
Lambada - me? - no. Not listened to - it's great that something like this can trigger memories that have been buried for a while - so long as most are good times!
I don't know if you have an account on Amazon or not, but you can set up a seller's account. They don't charge you for posting the item, like eBay, and there is a fee percentage they take, once the item is sold. The two biggest glitches are: you can't set an auction price, and they have to be selling the item in question, so it already has to be listed. The reason I mention all of this is I sold a cd of Russian Easter music at a fairly decent price off Amazon, not the usual eBay.
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