Blog
71 Hours to Monday, Global Remix
Written by Jimmy
We are extremely proud to introduce you to 71 Hours to Monday, Global Remix. We think you will love it as much as we do.
First, just enjoy the video. It speaks for itself.
Second, here’s a little background for you. The classic top 10 things you might want to do know about this video:
- This song was originally a nice little song off of our first Album, Six Months of Saturdays. It is originally featured Louise on vocals and included our first drum loop. You can listen to original here.
- It is about a girl who hates her job, loves her weekends and dreads her weekends. Click on lyrics here.
- We felt the subject matter was universal and in a moment of madness decided to take the song global to use for fund raising for the Singing Wells project, which is the work of the Abubilla Music Foundation to preserve the dance/song legacies of East Africa. Click here for more on the Abubilla Music Foundation.
- This global road trip started in Campo Limpo Sao Paolo Brazil. We took our mobile recording equipment into the middle of a road system, in the middle of the Favela. We plugged into an extension cord that ran from the computer to the road, across two lanes into a little bar, through the dining area, across the cooking area, to the back bar area, to a plug. All the dancers in the video just arrived. Oh, but one of them was also our taxi driver. We wrote a bit about this earlier. Click here for pictures.
- We then went to England and recording strings in the rain on top of an office builidng in London. We then continued the recording in the basement of the same office building , which as a former MI 5 building had pretty good acoustics.
- The third part of trip was to go to Nairobi and record in the studios of Ketebul Music, our partner on the Singing Wells project. The three vocal artists featured were Winyo, Makadem and Ayub Ogado. The first two are up and coming Kenyan artists, steeped in East African music traditions. The third is a legend of African music. If you click on their names, we’ve linked you to one of their best songs each. Here’s Ayub singing Kothbiro:
- We then added an opera singer. Not very many people would do that. She was able to add lines in Italian, to match the original lyrics, but matching the African backing vocals. Here are the lines: (E) mancan(o) settantun’ore a lunedi’, (E) mancan(o) quarantott’ore a lunedi’, E) mancan(o) diciassett’ore a lunedi’, Devo trascorrerle ben(e), e convincermi che val la pena di ricominciar(e) (da capo), Non ho un momento da perder(e), Voglio passarle con te, Sto per spaccar(e) quel maledetto orologio
- The dancers throughout are from our March Trip to Kenya. We’ve told their story here.
- Except for the Brazililans in Campo Limpo and the work-mates in London.
- Makadem’s translation into Swahili captured absolutely the vibe of the song and what the third verse was about. Equally, it was very amusing when we translated back to English. Here you go:
ORIGINAL:
I’m dancin’, prancin’, aggressively financin’
A Saturday evening with you.
I’m rummin’ and cokin’ and frequently stokin’
them romantic fires in you.
And I’m wakin’ in my efficiency, in an efficiency graveyard
Boxed in my apartment block.
Alone again on a Sunday, dreadin’ a Monday
About to shoot that damn clock…
SWAHILI VERSION
NAAMINI HII FANI NA MIMI NA DHAMINI
JUMAMOSI MOJA MIMI NA WEWE
GOGONI-MOTONI-MOYONI MWAKO
NAZIDI KUTIA MIALE MIZITO YA MAHABA
KWA UPWEKE NAAMKA KUTOKA KWA HILI KABURI LA MAISHA,
BANDANI NILIPO HIFADHIWA
PEKE YANGU TENA JUMAPILI HII
NIKIHOFIA JUMATATU IJAYO
MASKINI KIDOGO NIIBAMIZE HIO SAA……..
ENGLISH RE- TRANSLATION
I BELIEVE IN THIS SHOWBIZ AND I WILL FINANCE ONE SATURDAY WITH YOU
LIKE A BONFIRE IN YOUR HEART I CONTINUE TO PLANT HEAVY ROMANTIC FIRES
I WAKE UP LONELY FROM THIS LIMBO
IN THIS SHACK WHERE I HAVE BEEN PRESERVED
ALONE THIS SUNDAY AGAIN
DREADFUL OF A COMING MONDAY
POOR ME I ALMOST BASHED THE CLOCK
There’s a phrase in Television when you’ve really screwed up on a television series. It’s called ‘Jumping the Shark’. Wikopedia says it started with Happy Days, but their not old enough. It actually started earlier with BATMAN TV series where BATMAN sprayed shark repellent from his utilty belt on a shark. Fonsie then did it in Happy Days. It is about running out of ideas. We actually referred to this in our song Major Matt Mason from our first album, believe it or not. Anyway, at ABubilla Music we now have a new phrase. ‘We Bashed the clock.’ This means we were brave enough to team Makadem up with an opera singer and are pleased with the results. I hope you agree we ‘bashed the clock’ on this one.
Jimmy
(with thanks to all who participated!)