Like a postcard that arrived a year late, don't mind at all. still very good read.
And to John Baillie: oh my sweet lord, me too, living in Poland then, loved
Jacques Brel! Reading it first thing this morning, what a trip! May be not that good for my emotional well being today though, LOL Thank you for taking me there.
Jul 4, 2022·edited Jul 4, 2022Liked by Richard Seager
Probably the most famous song about Amsterdam, its sailors, their diet and lifestyle. I wonder what their life expectancy was?
Here's Camille O'Sullivan singing an English version of Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam", against a slideshow of photographs of old Amsterdam, with some extra freedom in the translation.
I'm certain this is Rod McKuen's live 1971 performance from Amsterdam's great concert hall, the Concertgebouw. This is almost a different song, though the theme is unmistakably the same.
And lastly, here's Jacques Brel himself, recorded live at the Olympia in 1964 if you must have it sung in French. There's English subtitles, though not always ideally rendered. But, overall, I prefer the freer translation performed by Camille.
I hadn't put this up on my blog previously. It was part of a course that I did due to the cycling infrastructure course (in Amsterdam) that I'd enrolled in being cancelled which was in turn due to the insanity of COVID going on at the time. I did two online courses as a replacement, this one was about the history of urban space with a concentration on Amsterdam from its founding until now.
It introduced me to 1970s Amsterdam which was quite a radical time, it's a shame that it didn't survive.
The other course was about sustainable cities. Or smart cities as Klaus would call them. That too was an eye opener.
Happy Independence Day! Today we celebrate our independence from a tyrannical system of government. But are we doing enough to prevent our system from resorting back?
This Independence Day we must shift focus from fighting each other to fixing the corrupted systems that govern over all of our lives. This is something we should all agree on, and being the number one problem we face in America today, there is nothing more important:
Like a postcard that arrived a year late, don't mind at all. still very good read.
And to John Baillie: oh my sweet lord, me too, living in Poland then, loved
Jacques Brel! Reading it first thing this morning, what a trip! May be not that good for my emotional well being today though, LOL Thank you for taking me there.
I think that the woman who was hosed down was from Poland. Moze byc. Somewhere in the east of Europe anyway.
Probably the most famous song about Amsterdam, its sailors, their diet and lifestyle. I wonder what their life expectancy was?
Here's Camille O'Sullivan singing an English version of Jacques Brel's "Amsterdam", against a slideshow of photographs of old Amsterdam, with some extra freedom in the translation.
https://youtu.be/0-MgVG8-Bm8
Here's Camille again in a live performance, getting quite worked up in the latter half.
https://youtu.be/ImufUfNlbFQ
If you like Bowie, you might prefer this version.
https://youtu.be/SEjux_xHb6c
I'm certain this is Rod McKuen's live 1971 performance from Amsterdam's great concert hall, the Concertgebouw. This is almost a different song, though the theme is unmistakably the same.
https://youtu.be/LAx2oX6m6ww
And lastly, here's Jacques Brel himself, recorded live at the Olympia in 1964 if you must have it sung in French. There's English subtitles, though not always ideally rendered. But, overall, I prefer the freer translation performed by Camille.
https://youtu.be/OjYtY1CQXHQ
I'd forgotten that I was quite the Jacques Brel fan, thanks for that.
Wow. I missed this one last year and didn't have a clue that any of that happened . Thanks for reposting! Great post.
I hadn't put this up on my blog previously. It was part of a course that I did due to the cycling infrastructure course (in Amsterdam) that I'd enrolled in being cancelled which was in turn due to the insanity of COVID going on at the time. I did two online courses as a replacement, this one was about the history of urban space with a concentration on Amsterdam from its founding until now.
It introduced me to 1970s Amsterdam which was quite a radical time, it's a shame that it didn't survive.
The other course was about sustainable cities. Or smart cities as Klaus would call them. That too was an eye opener.
Happy Independence Day! Today we celebrate our independence from a tyrannical system of government. But are we doing enough to prevent our system from resorting back?
This Independence Day we must shift focus from fighting each other to fixing the corrupted systems that govern over all of our lives. This is something we should all agree on, and being the number one problem we face in America today, there is nothing more important:
Article: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/happy-independence-day?r=7oa9d&utm_medium=ios
Video/Audio:
https://youtu.be/m_biuzQRtGU