Rasputin

“Rasputin” is one of the most famous songs of the 70's group Boney M., the members of which are Liz Mitchell and Marcia Barrett from Jamaica and Maizie Williams ad Bobby Farrell from the West Indies. Although they have a fairly large number of songs that are traditional songs, especially Christmas songs, Boney M.'s music is mostly disco-like with a few songs containing elements of folk songs. For example, “Rasputin” contains segments of the Turkish folk song “Uskudara Gider Iken”. It is a highly catchy song about the legendary Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin. The pacing and rhythm of the vocals fits stupendously with the steady drum beat, making the song easy to follow and easy to remember. Although the music is mainly gold-colored guitar and light green strings, “Rasputin” has an overall color of off-white. Listening to this song reminds one of a valley filled with dancing cossacks and Rasputin up front singing about himself in the third person. The music video personifies some of this feeling with some nice dancing and cool-as-custard facial expressions by Bobby Farrell. With entertaining lyrics and music that sticks in your head with a death-grip, it's a very cool song. By the way, it gets cut off by the video, but that last line is “Oh, those Russians”.

A few other Boney M. songs that I like:

• Daddy Cool
• Belfast
• Ma Baker