THOSE WERE THE DAYS
A 1968 world hit with a little help from the Beatles and the USSR
1925 ∙ Tamara Tsereteli ∙ 1926 ∙ Aleksander Vertinsky ∙ 1953 ∙ Ludmila Lopato (movie ‘Innocents in Paris’) ∙
'Dorogoi dlinnoyu' (By the long road) is a Soviet song composed in 1924 by Boris Fomin on nostalgic lyrics of the poet Konstantin Podrevsky. It was recorded in 1925 by Tamara Tsereteli, a Georgian contralto singer known for her renditions of Russian gypsy romances. It was also recorded in 1926 by Alexander Vertinsky (1889-1957), a famous Soviet actor and cabaret singer who lived and performed in Paris from 1925 to 1935. The song became popular in the USSR and remained a classic over the next decades. It was featured in the Anglo-French film 'Innocents in Paris' (1953, dir. Gordon Parry) in a cabaret scene where the original 1924 Russian lyrics were sung by Ludmila Lopato (1914-2004), a gypsy singer who had been mentored by Vertinsky upon her arrival in Paris where her family had emigrated in 1929.
Eugene Raskin (1909-2004) was born in the Bronx, New York. He was a trained architect and university teacher and also a dedicated playwright, novelist and musician. He and his wife formed the Gene & Francesca Duo, who sang popular world folk songs in Greenwich Village clubs and released a 78 rpm album in the early 50s and two 33 rpm LPs in 1958-59. In the early 60s, Raskin wrote his own lyrics in English for the 1924 Russian classic Dorogoi Dlinnoyu, named it ‘Those Were The Days’ and copyrighted both the lyrics and the music - deceitfully as of the latter - in his own name. The song was adopted by the then famous entertainers' US trio The Limeliters who recorded it in 1962.
∙ 1962 ∙ Those were the days (The Limeliters) ∙
Paul McCartney bought the related rights from Raskin in 1967 as the first venture deal for Apple Records, the company that the Beatles were then in the process of launching. The song was entrusted to two female singers: Mary Hopkin, the 17-year-old Welsh winner of the recent ITV talent show 'Opportunity Knocks', and Sandie Shaw, the 20-year-old winner of the 1967 Eurovision contest. Both singers released their own version of the song in 5 languages (English, French, German, Italian and Spanish) in early 1968. In UK, the Mary Hopkin version was the most successful and is nowadays remembered as the original.
MARY HOPKIN ∙ 1968 ∙ Those were the days ∙ Cétait le temps des fleurs ∙ Quelli erano giorni ∙ Qué tiempo tan feliz ∙ An jenem Tag ∙
SANDIE SHAW ∙ 1968 ∙ Those were the days ∙ Cétait le temps des fleurs ∙ Quelli erano giorni ∙ Qué tiempo tan feliz ∙ An jenem Tag ∙
