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The Survivor song

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strikingstar
Bilingual Tetraglot
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292 posts - 444 votes 
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 Message 1 of 4
05 January 2012 at 9:40pm | IP Logged 
You know the Survivor theme song? Yeah, that really catchy one.
The one that sounds like this.
Survivor Theme

I don't know why but I've always assumed that it was sung in some Poly/Micro/Melanesian
language.

But I did some research on a whim, and I discovered that it came from this
Kurski Funk.

Which in turn comes from this.
Kurski Funk

Now the only thing I wanna know is: What do the lyrics mean? And is it Russian or
something else?

Anyone know? I hope someone does. Otherwise I might have to post this in the Russian or
even Specific Languages subforum. This part of the forum doesn't seem to get much
traffic.


____________________________________________________________ ___________________________


On a related note, anyone remember this song.
Return to Innocence

They sampled this without permission.
老人饮酒歌/Elder Drinking Song
I used to think it was African.



____________________________________________________________ ___________________________


And I'm sure everyone knows where Shakira got Waka Waka from.
She obviously stole it from these chicas!!!
Waka Waka


























Nahhhhh, it came from this.
Zangalewa
Zangalewa in its full glory.

Edited by strikingstar on 05 January 2012 at 10:04pm

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s0fist
Diglot
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260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 2 of 4
06 January 2012 at 6:28am | IP Logged 
I've never watched Survivor, but the melody is instantly recognizable to my ears as an example of folk female Russian dancing choir, sometimes known as khorovod, tanok, or (as google translate just told me) roundelay.

The original is too faint to make out any words.
From the second linked video I can make out the following at the start and further shorter phrases at certain later points.
" Выйду, выйду да на вулицу, да разыграю хоровод,
Ии ой люли-люли-ля да разыграю хоровод"
which in itself is enough to find the following song lyrics here.
The second video (from archaic language) is likely either very old or artfully made to appear so (at least to my ears). This is judging by artifacts like вулицу and the accent of the singers. I could be mistaken, this particular fragment, contrary to being called "Kursk roundelay" could well be Ukrainian or Belorussian, but to me it sounds unmistakenly Russian. Though this kind of art, prevalent in all three, can without a doubt be broadly dubbed Slavic.

The second version doesn't present the whole song, but fortunately you can find it in the third video which is obviously modern, sung in more modern accent, but still entwined with the traditional mannerisms.
The music in the third video though is a mix of clearly out-of-place modern jazz variation based on the traditional melody (IANA musician per se, so don't lynch me if this isn't actually "modern jazz"). I like this music but to me the third version can't compare to the real polyphonic beauty of an authentic khorovod.

Here's the lyrics of the text copy-pasted from the above link (since it contains much extraneous text, not only the Курский танок). This being folk art there's bound to me a multitude of variants but I'm pretty sure this should suffice.

------------------------------------------------
"Пойду выйду на улицу" (Курский танок)

Пойду-выйду на улицу да разыграю в хоровод,
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
Да разыграю в хоровод да я у милого в ворот.
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
А у мово да у милого воротики точёные.
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
Воротики точёные, а вереюшки злачёные.
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
У ворот милый друг стоит, не пускает на улицу.
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
А я его не боюся, добрых людей постыжуся.
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
А у меня игра да играна, а песен(ы)ка досказана
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
Да исхоженный таночек, да провоженный дружочек
Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли.
------------------------------------------------

Skipping the "Э-э-ой, лёли-лёли, ляли, лёли-лёли" which is just sounds of the common folk chorus.
I shall use khorovod for the roundelay, which is a dancing, singing, playing form of folk art of which the song itself the quintessence.

Roughly translated, the above means:

------------------------------------------------
"I shall go out to the street" (Kursk's khorovod)

I shall go outside to the street and start a khorovod.
I shall play a khorovod near my sweetheart's gates.
My sweetheart's gates are beautifully chiseled.
Chiseled little gates, and gilted little cords.
By the gates a dear friend stands, won't let me outside.
I'm not afraid of him, but I shall be ashamed in the face of kindly people.
My game is played out, and my little song is sung.
Oh that little footworn khorovod, and oh that sent-off little friend.
------------------------------------------------

The khorovod tradition is still largely alive, though not nearly as popular as it once has been and it was a major form pop music and entertainment in Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, and elsewhere among the Slavic people.

Cheers!
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s0fist
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5049 days ago

260 posts - 445 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French

 
 Message 3 of 4
06 January 2012 at 6:42am | IP Logged 
strikingstar wrote:

They sampled this without permission.
老人饮酒歌/Elder Drinking Song
I used to think it was African.

Somehow I like this version better than Enigma's edit, but then again I like my new age stuff in short bursts of 2-5 minutes, whereas authentic novel stuff gets a get out of jail free pass the first hundred rounds.

strikingstar wrote:

And I'm sure everyone knows where Shakira got Waka Waka from.
She obviously stole it from these chicas!!!
Waka Waka

Just lol.
1 person has voted this message useful



strikingstar
Bilingual Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5176 days ago

292 posts - 444 votes 
Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Cantonese, Swahili
Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)

 
 Message 4 of 4
06 January 2012 at 11:55am | IP Logged 
Thank you, thank you, thank you, s0fist!!

That was an incredibly detailed answer.
I'm guessing this is closer to the folk tradition you mentioned.
(It's amazing what you can find when you have the song's original title.)
Пойду выйду на улицу

Now that I have the translation, the song doesn't quite jive with Survivor anymore.
Singing on streets, sweetheart's gates, kindly people vs outwit, outplay, outlast?




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