Entry 588: Vamos a la Playa

The greatest thing about the internet, hands down, is that it allows you to look up random stuff from your childhood. Often I have these little snippets of memories, barely enough to start a Google search, and through the power of the world wide web, I can expand upon them, learn the full story behind them, and put them into context as an adult.

Here's an example...

I took Spanish in ninth grade and my teacher was this youngish, kinda flighty, quirky woman, and she would frequently make random comments and asides during class.  Once, when we were doing some vocab, the word "playa" came up, and she briefly stopped, sang a little song, "vamos a la playa, oh, oh, oh, oh," and then kept going with the lesson.

For some reason, the other day I remembered that five second tangent from almost 30 years ago, and wondered why she sang it. Was it an actual song? Did she make it up on the spot? So, I Googled it and got quite the rabbit-hole treat. It is indeed a really song. It's from 1983 by an Italian duo named Righeira, and, well, you can watch the video yourself.

It was a pretty big international hit, but didn't chart in the States. It went to #1 in Switzerland. So, apparently the Swiss were big on campy Italian duos who sing repetitively in Spanish.

Also, the song is about nuclear war. Here are the few non-chorus words:

The bomb exploded.
The radiation toasts,
and blends nicely with the blue.

Everybody with a hat.
The radioactive wind
burns off the hair.

Finally the water is clean.
No more stinking fish,
but fluorescent water.

The video and music take on a whole new meaning after reading that. It's got a kinda chilling effect going through it. I don't think I'm going to add it a playlist or anything like that, but I give the members of Righeira (both named Stefano, by the way) major props for it. It's a cool song.

In other news of random things I googled from my past, my friend JW once told me that his brother saw an encyclopedia with the guide words MENAGE -- OTTAWA. (Think French sex terms if you don't get why this is noteworthy.) And we wondered if it was a total accident or the design of a cheeky editor. I don't have an answer to that, but I do have proof that such an encyclopedia really exists.

 Until next time...