Tag: eighties

Posted in English

The Perminator

Posted on by Colin Lusk

My daughter has been telling people her favourite portuguese music is “Eu Tenho Dois Amores” by Marco Paulo, and she’s even sung the opening line to me a couple of times, but nothing could prepare me for the real thing.

I see a lot of people in the comments are nostalgic for it, and I get that: music that reminds you of a time and a place is always special. And I have to admit, the lad has or a set of pipes on him. But, as someone hearing it for the first time in 2023, it’s pretty cringe. The hair style, the little dance, the fact that he is singing about his two girlfriends who are completely different because um… they have different hair colours… Well, that’s the eighties for you, I suppose!

Posted in English

Oliver Beiji

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Episode 8,947 in my series “Trying to Decipher Stuff I Found on The Interwebs” Have you come across this meme before?

The idea is, the murderer can’t find his prey so he starts singing a line of a song everyone knows, that nobody can resist finishing, and it forces the victim to reveal his hiding place. I’ve seen a few incarnations of it but this was the first time I’d seen a Portuguese version so I thought I’d try and work out what the song was.

What makes it difficult is I think there’s a typo. It should say “Oliver Benji” but I guess someone’s spellcheck changed Benji to Beiji. The rest of the line “são os magos da bola” means “are wizards of the ball”. It’s a reference to a Japanese Anime series called Captain Tsubasa which was shown in Portugal under the name “Campeões – Oliver e Benji” from 1983 to 86. It must have been popular at the time, because if you dig around on Google you can find sticker albums of it and everything. I guess if you are a certain age the nostalgia must run deep.

Oliver e Benji São os Magos da Bola
Posted in Portuguese

Caderneta de Cromos

Posted on by Colin Lusk

 

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Que desgraça. Tenho tão pouca vontade de ler os três livros portugueses que tenho em andamento que precisei de algo mais fácil e acabei por ler isto. Só li os capítulos sobre fenómenos internacionais porque queria ter algo fácil: Knight Rider, Lionel Ritchie, Mullets, V, Casettes… Coisas que velhos tal como eu lembram com ternura e vocês jovens, bebés sem cultura nenhuma nunca irão entender.

Posted in English

Rapaz’s Delight

Posted on by Colin Lusk

Listening to an episode of Cromos M80 the other day I heard about “Os Lusitansos” by Luís Filipe Barros. It’s a history of Portugal in the form of a rap, with the beat basically pinched from the Sugar Hill Gang. It’s er… Well, it’s something from the 80s, simultaneously the best and worst decade in history.