For anyone who misses Italy and Italians as much as I do.
The first time I ever heard this song, "The Soldier In Love", on TV on Christmas Day 1987, it was like saving my life. It was the finale, on a film of the combined troupes of the Bolshoi & Bejart Ballets, all of the dancers just having fun together. It was so spontaneous, so full of joy that it picked me up and I have never erased that video.
This is the closest version I could find, an Italian TV show to welcome the year 2000.
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Although I couldn't understand a word they were saying it was "Fun" and made me long for the days of a good old fashioned sing-a-long and knees-up...music hall style :o)
With Love
Rx
Funny you should remark that Ruth. I said it was vaguely like an Italian Hokey Cokey - everybody but everybody knows it! It's great to see all the different versions on you-tube.
Here is a stab at a quick translation:
The Soldier in Love
I'm far away from your heart,
I fly to you in my thoughts.
I want nothing and hope for nothing
Except to hold you close to me always,
So strong is this love that binds us together.....
(Chorus):
Oh, life, This life of mine
Oh, heart, this heart of mine.
If this is my first love,
Then the first and last will it be for me!
You always write that you are happy.
I only think of you there alone.
No thoughts console me,
Except yours only for me.
The most beautiful among all that is beautiful.
The most beautiful of all is you!
(Chorus).
The world's greatest romantics, eh?
What else matters, at the end of the day?
Love always,
Sxxxxxxxxxxxx
That's so lovely....thanks for the translation. Long live romance!
RXXXXX
Language barrier here too Stewart, but their joy and pleasure is infectious.
The most beautiful among all that is beautiful...keeps the heart tender..awwww
Its good that you still have the video, things like these can be little treasures at times
Thinking of you xx Auds
I miss italy for lots of reasons, most of it I miss is my female-friend and her hus, but also the great weather, the icecreams parties etc...:)
What do you miss?
When you aren't there?
JOANN :)
Dank u weel for the comment, joann (So, you had absolutely no temperature today in Holland?).
You ask an excellent question, how can I answer briefly? Well, in short, I've lived a whole lifetime close to the people from just about everywhere in the world, personally and through my work. I've lived in a lot of places too. I have long felt that Italians are the people who know best how to live life. I love their intensity, their passion, their laughing and their crying, their socialising, their food, their warmth. And I love their rich cultural history. I love the beauty and diversity of the country. No society & no country is perfect - Thank heavens for that. But maybe, just maybe, I have now lived too long in Portugal (over 11 years). At least in London, there were Italians....and everybody else. That is the one and only thing I miss about my London, by the way, the multinational/cultural diversity.
I now live in an incredibly homegenous town 30 kms from Lisbon. It is the wrong homogeneity for me, because it cannot stimulate me. And I am stuck in it, as a prisoner, where I can never belong. Since last winter, I have dreamed of repairing my social & cultural starvation by fleeing to Italy and then to France, which is closer to being my spiritual home. But it is only a dream. And everything and everywhere is changing so fast.
I hope "O Surdatto Nnamorato" fixed your nostalgia too. It helps, and it puts all I have tried to say to you into words, music and image. Funiculí, funiculá! And ciao, baci, auguri e arrivederlá!
Auds, I am going to dig that video out now. Thanks, and hope all is well out there.
****
PS. You will all be getting an insight by now into the "other side" of Portugal, via the McCann story. The side that I know all about, that doesn't appear in any tourist guide, or travel book, the one that many people have urged me to write about for about 8 years now, and which I mostly refuse. Since the tragedy broke last May, I started waiting for it to emerge, so I have not been surprised. Without explanation, all we see is the gulf between two cultures, as well as the worst of each side's press and TV. It really needs explaining, revealing, I know. But I am keeping it mostly to myself, as to why all this is happening. It is complex. It is also very sad.
I'm still around Stewart.I've been reading a lot here and I understand your silence and respect it, yet I miss you with all my heart. Love, Ani :)
Hi S.! I'm back from my holidays aand cheking on my blogger friends. It's good to see that you are still around. I didn't know this song, but I enjoyed listening to it. Sent me back to a WWF camp with Portuguese, Spanish and Italian participants, a long, long time ago... We sang a lot, too!!
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