Misheard: I Love Goat Cheese! :)

What happens when the sublime meets the ridiculous? Maybe one of the things you get is goat cheese.

Carmina Burana (Songs of Beuren) is supposed to be one of the great compositions of western classical music. Written in the 13th century it was was famously set to music by the German composer, Carl Orff, in the 1930s and went on to become hugely popular as a score that set the mood for dramatic or cataclysmic situations. In India most people remember it as the background music for an advertisement featuring an aftershave lotion - Old Spice - with images of a surfer riding tumultuous waves, a pretty face, and a face splashed with a liquid that was supposed to be the 'mark of a man'.

Recently some creative genius on YouTube (or was it Tiktok?) posted a video with the title "You'll never listen to this song the same way again!". Sure enough it transforms this classic to a hilarious meme with these lyrics - 

I love goat cheese, Give me cookies!

They'll give us Gonorrhoea

This octopus, Let's give him boots!

Send him to North Korea!

As if to add to this cheerful confusion, a university choir has actually recorded  a performance  using these 'alternate' lyrics. So it takes a bit of digging to get the the original lyrics, and to figure out the specific lines that have been parodied. Perhaps these are the lines that go with the one who loves goat cheese - 

Sors salutis, et virtutis

michi nunc contraria,

est affectus, et defectus 

semper in angaria.

(English:  Fate is against me; in health and virtue, driven on and weighted down, always enslaved)

This is of course only one in a long series videos featuring misheard lyrics. There is one Russian folk song that has been doing the rounds as a Malayalam song, and Shakira's popular theme 2010 Football World Cup song, Waka-Waka, that does sound like Hindi slag for taking a bath at Charminar!

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* O'Fortuna - Misheard lyrics - https://youtu.be/pQEfxhvAy0c 

* Original - André Rieu - O'Fortuna - https://youtu.be/EJC-_j3SnXk 

* Original Lyrics + translation - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Fortuna

* Story behind Carmina Burana - https://www.classicfm.com/composers/orff/guides/story-behind-orffs-carmina-burana/ 

* Russian song misheard in Kerala - https://youtu.be/_zEbRrV-flw

Hava Hava, Sucu Sucu

Catchy tunes have a way of traveling around the world.

Recently I was quite amazed to know that the famous Hindi song, "Hava Hava" was actually a copy of a copy! The original was a 1970s song from Iran which was copied by a Pakistani Singer, and then by Bollywood.

Havar Havar (Persian original) - Kouroush Yaghmei, 1978


Hava Hava (Pakistani copy) - Hassan Jehangir - https://youtu.be/lrusoeIvetQ
Hava Hava (Coke Studio Pakistan re-make) - 2018 - https://youtu.be/w3s8cjG2WYY

Hava Hava (Hindi copy) - Movie "Mubarakan" (2017)




Then there is a Spanish song "Suku Suku" by the Bolivian singer, Tarateño Rojas in the 1960s. This particular tune went on to be adapted or copied into no less than 19 languages, including a Japanese version, Furimukanaide - Sucu Sucu (The Peanuts, 1960s) 

Suku Suku (Spanish) - Original by Tarateño Rojas


Bollywood was quick to copy this number and make it part of the Hindi movie "Junglee" in 1961. The film went on to be a big hit.

Suku Suku (Hindi) - Movie "Junglee" (1961)