Growing up in Rhodesia, Southern Africa, I heard a few international songs on the radio. We only had one English radio station where we lived, all the rest were in African languages.
This was a hit song when I was a teenager, and it is sill one of my favorite love songs. Although I don’t understand the French words, I enjoy the English words in the song. The other morning, I woke up singing this song, so I decided I must put it on my site. I read somewhere that Lucille Starr was the first female Canadian singer to have a million seller, which was this song. Someday I would like to find all the English words.
When I was young, my brother Gilbert raved about Marlene Dietrich’s singing, and I can’t remember which song it was I heard, but I like this one. Many years ago I sang with an old timers band in Africa, and this is one of the songs they sang, but they did it in English.
Here is another international hit song that I heard when I was young. I don’t understand the words, which are in Belgium, but it was a world wide hit. Some guys on the radio played this song recently and told the behind the scenes story, which I found very interesting. I am telling what I remember, but I cannot verify it. Apparently their government sent them a massive bill for back taxes, but they say they gave all the money to the church. The bill was something like $63,000US. The two nuns committed suicide, and the next day the royalty cheque came in for hundreds of thousands, which could have paid the bill with plenty to spare. If only they had waited another day, or if only the royalty people had moved a bit faster in sending the cheque, it could have been different.
When I was young, some friends had an LP record called: ‘The International Jim Reeves.’ That is what gave me the idea for this page. He sings songs from around the world. You can hear him sing in Afrikaans on my Afrikaans page. This is a song of hope during the second world war, and when we visited England many years ago, my parents took us to the White Cliffs of Dover, and Stonehenge.
Back when I was doing this page, I wanted to put a Zulu group on, to make it more international, but the pictures did not meet the morality standard of SBI, so I didn’t do it. In hindsight, I feel like putting this song on because it is an Africa type song. It reminds me of when I was singing in Tsumeb, we had a day off and visited the Etosha Pan Game Reserve (in Namibia). We stayed too long, and had to sleep the night in a tent. Someone was playing a tape of a lion roaring, and later that night we heard lions outside the fence. Maybe they played a mating call? We were so scared. There was a ten foot fence around us, but I had heard when I was young that lions can jump a ten foot fence. So I didn’t feel safe. Later on I heard a story of Chinese people visiting the Krugersdorp Lion Park, and one of the guys got out of the car to take pictures, and the lions ate him in front of his friends. You never can tell what a wild animal will do.
Here’s a song I have heard on the radio, that I find very interesting.
This is part of a movie. The Africans sing with such beautiful harmony, and don’t need any music.
We were at an End time Handmaidens Convention once, when they were doing a Jewish song, so we joined with them holding hands and dancing in a circle. It was a lot of fun.
I heard Willie Nelson sing with Julio, and I know he sings lots of languages, so I thought I should add him in here.
Jy is my Liefling. You are my Darling.