My Seventies Music

Tag: Lyrics

  • Puhdys -“Ikarus”, “Ikarus II” and “Mephisto”

    I first came across the East German band Puhdys back in either 1978 or 1979 on a trip to Germany (before I lived there) and bought their album “Pudhys 5”, with tracks like “Ikarus II”, “Mephisto” and “Wilde Jahre” (Wild Years).

    Pudhys, who were heavily influenced by artists like Deep Purple and Uriah Heep, were the first “Ostrock” or East German rock band allowed to visit West Germany.

    As you can imagine, there is not a lot of video footage from back then, so I have mainly only been able to find film of them playing in more recent times – it appears they are still going strong.

    This is “Ikarus”, live in 2006, I’m not sure if it’s the same song as “Ikarus II” on the album I have, it’s a bit hard to tell (this is just music without lyrics):

    Here is a live version of “Ikarus II” from 1993 (takes a while to get going and the video quality is not that great):

    This version of “Mephisto”, also on “Puhdys 5”, is the studio version:

    Actually I did turn up a couple of videos from the Seventies after all, but I found them a bit boring so I’ll leave it at that and play the record again some time to find the ones I do like.

    Paul

    P.S. On coming back to this page some time later and playing the first Ikarus video, I have now actually found a live version of “Ikarus” from 1979 (audio only sorry) that brings across the feeling of hard rock behind the Iron Curtain when this music first came out:

  • Vicky Leandros – “Après Toi” and “Come What May”

    Vicky Leandros single Après Toi

    And now for something completely different… In 1972 Vicky Leandros had a European hit with “Après Toi” (After You), and I went on my first overseas trip from New Zealand, to the French Pacific colony of New Caledonia.

    All the time we were in Nouméa, its capital, we heard the song “Après Toi” again and again, and it came to be the theme song of our two week visit – and always reminds me of that time.

    Of course I bought the single (see above), although unlike New Zealand singles it had a huge hole in the middle, so I had to find an adapter to be able to play it!

    The reason the song was so big in Europe was she had just won the Eurovision song contest with it, on behalf of Luxembourg.

    This is “Après Toi”, in French:

    And here are the French lyrics:

    Tu t’en vas, l’amour a pour toi le sourire d’une autre,
    Je voudrais, mais ne peux t’en vouloir
    Désormais, tu vas m’oublier
    Ce n’est pas de ta faute, et pourtant tu dois savoir

    Qu’après toi, je ne pourrai plus vivre,
    Non plus vivre qu’en souvenir de toi
    Après toi, j’aurai les yeux humides,
    Les mains vides, le coeur sans joie

    Avec toi, j’avais appris a rire,
    Et mes rires ne viennent que par toi
    Après toi, je ne serai que l’ombre
    De ton ombre, après toi

    Même un jour, si je fais ma vie
    Si je tiens la promesse qui unit deux êtres pour toujours
    Àpres toi, je pourrai peut-être donner de ma tendresse
    Mais plus rien de mon amour

    Après toi, je ne pourrai plus vivre,
    Non plus vivre qu’en souvenir de toi
    Après toi, j’aurai les yeux humides,
    Les mains vides, le coeur sans joie

    Avec toi, j’avais appris a rire,
    Et mes rires ne viennent que par toi
    Après toi, je ne serai que l’ombre
    De ton ombre, après toi

    Vicky Leandros is actually Greek, and having spent much of her early life in Germany with her musician father (Leandros is actually his first name), Vicky Leandros sings in numerous languages and apparently she sang “Après Toi” in seven languages.

    The English version, which reached No. 2 in the UK, is called “Come What May”:

    Think I prefer the French version… for the words and the memories…

    Paul

    P.S. Vicky Leandros earlier came 4th at Eurovision in 1967 with “L’amour est bleu”, also known as “Love is blue”, which became very popular in the late Sixties in the version by French orchestra leader Paul Mauriat.

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