Rah, rah Rasputin!

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It's been a few years since I heard this song, but a few of us were singing it at work the other day and now I can't get enough of Boney M.'s legendary Rasputin. Here's one version from 1978:

A shorter version of the same show in color and better quality, but without the fun Moscow photo/film montage:

How can the people sit still, looking bored, at the dinner party or whatever that event was? Impossible.

Live at Top of the Pops, Christmas 1978:

Wacky Count Rasputin version on Italian TV in 1978:

And a 30-year reunion live version in Russia, 2008:

Not as much to commend that, except the lip-syncing guy doing nice backflips on stage. And everyone having fun with it.

There are more, but I'll stop here. It's one of disco's finest tracks.

Back in the non-disco world, Rasputin had a daughter, and it's too bad she died before this song became famous:

Rasputin's daughter, Maria Rasputin (Matryona Rasputina) (1898–1977), emigrated to France after the October Revolution, and then to the U.S. There she worked as a dancer and then a tiger-trainer in a circus.

And probably the final crazy footnote to the Rasputin song:

Bobby Farrell, who was the band's frontman, passed away in 2010, in the same city [St. Petersburg] and on the same day [December 30] as the real-life Rasputin. [news article]

Really wunderbar!

Comments

  1. becky jacobsenSaturday, June 23, 2012 10:29:00 AM

    I did not sit still or look bored. Have you ever seen Grammy dance? Yeah, no one else has either.

    ReplyDelete

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