Musical memory

(Not “memories”:  We are not taking a stroll here down memory lane, but examining the topology of the lane itself, which turns out to be self-intersecting.)

The following songs, neither especially well-remembered, turn out to have melded in my mind:

“Song of the Volga Boatmen”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNb54rwDQJM

[Here sung as it was meant to be sung, by the Red Army chorus. Remarkably moving.   One can only imagine how this might have sounded to the militants of the twenties and thirties.]

“Haul Away, Joe”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvBHdw-EqLM

[Sung by some Irishmen.]

Basically,  what I recalled was  the Russian melody, with the English words (which fit like a hand in a glove).

More on the vagaries of musical memory here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2011/10/categories-and-sameness.html

(See towards the end, on “cryptomelodia”.)

More on music-for-Russian-paratroopers  here:

http://worldofdrjustice.blogspot.com/2012/01/music-for-paratroopers.html