Wednesday, February 06, 2013

15 years ago today...

...a very odd double-death day. Both Carl Wilson from the Beach Boys (lung cancer) and Falco (car accident) died on the same day. I was a fan of both men, although their musical contributions were very different.

Carl was the lead vocal on many great Beach Boys songs, but this one is my favorite...



Falco was probably the most famous Austrian composer since Strauss. When "Der Kommissar" first came out I was at WPGU in Champaign, and the program director asked me translate the song for the audience. A few weeks later the group After the Fire came out with an English version, and my translation was immediately useless.