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Subscribe to RSSPart of THE PROMISED LAND by director & artist MORTEN TRAAVIK, opening at the international arts and culture festival Barents Spektakel in Kirkenes, Norway, February 8-12, 2012. www.traavik.info and www.barentsspektakel.no
BEIJING—Here's a little diversion for anyone needing a little break from sports this weekend (Superbowl, anyone? Jeremy Lin, anyone?).
It's a chirpy version of that 1980s A-ha standby, “Take On Me,” performed by…
Accordion players.
In North Korea.
The five musicians were filmed at the Kum Song School in the capital, Pyongyang, in December last year.
They were introduced to the A-ha song by visiting Norwegian artist Morten Traavik, who had been travelling to and from North Korea as part of efforts to bring musicians and artists from the isolated country to Norway for an arts and culture festival this month.
According to one report, the accordion players surprised Traavik with their improvised version of the Euro-pop song two days after he presented them with the CD. He then filmed them playing the song and posted it on YouTube to promote the festival, which runs from February 8-12.
Leave a Comment:
This should come with a warning.
"WARNING:
Something that has been seen, cannot be unseen."
Hayday! This is news because music and arts are and always have been universal in transcending language and culture and quite often bringing understanding and peace, especially among those that detest war and wish to better understand others.
Myron Floren would be proud.
@Hayday...clearly you have never heard of human interest stories.
If you don't like it, don't click on the link.
Check out the very end where the kid asnwers his phone. Probably their handler saying, "What are you doing?!"
Seriously, cool vid.
Wow, those North Koreans sure are up to speed on the latest and greatest hit songs and those groovy accordians. PU! Chumbkt, you're totally spot on.
From a Conservative Republican - GREAT job, and well done by the man who brought the cd to N.Korea , and wow the power of musical expression even in this country can't be denied !!!These people aren't the problem it's their paranoid leaders in military and civilian control !
Why accordions, they don't have electricity to power anything else.
It's too bad there are so many stupid people...I mean PARENTS...but Why buck the establishment...most people are so busy with their lives...nothing will change.
if you zoom in to the reflection in their eyes you can see their minders behind the camera pointing bazookas at them. Not that this would be specific to NK but i believe any country would have to resort to this tactic to get people to give adaptations on accordian to 80 cheese pop.
This take on A-ha is similar to their take on human rights
Hey if ping pong diplomacy worked for the US and China, why not accordian diplomacy? Now if only they could do the full version of Stairway to Heaven......
No Stairway.
Play the accordion- go to jail!
That's my motto.
"Play the accordion- go to jail!"
lol agreed!
To me the accordion means "my old Scoutmaster from back in the day who had Body Odor that is so amazingly strong and overwhelming that it stings your eyes when you're within a dozen feet of him as he's playing really really bad songs and singing along very very badly" - unfortunately that doesn't really leave much room for a pop song on accordion being good at all.
Who knew North Korean kids could have fun? I thought it was pretty cool.
My thoughts exactly, as I was reading the article I finally got to the part where they almost visited Norway..That would of been another article in itself.
I thought it was fine. A twist on an old tune and considering they only listened to the CD 2 days prior, wow.
Well done kids.
Living in Korea must be awesome for these kids. Learning is fun! We stopped teaching kids in America decades ago.
Makes me want to dust off my old "boom box". Too bad it doesn't play CD's, but I can copy one cassette to another at 2xs speed!
"Makes me want to dust off my old "boom box"."
lol so you can beat along with the Fat Boys' "Human Beatbox"? :D
update: this just in from north korea today on channel 1 your favorite only channel. All four students were later shot for not dedicating this song to the great leader. all hail the great leader. this is ping signing out
Nicely done.
"Take on me--take me on." These lyrics never quite made sense to me. I wonder how the North Koreans translate it... Good performance kids!
Don't miss the the message from the hard line communist. ( Take on me ).
( I'll be coming for you anyway )
What's the difference between an onion and an accordion?
No body cries when you cut up an accordion!
And Mitchell,
Fox News has never allowed comments on their website. Why do you think that is so?
It's really my favorite part of reading MSNBC.
Feisty '12!
it's better to keep your mouth shut and let people think you're an idiot, then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
now,
go to foxnews click on a story, then click on the comments bar. tada! comments. Been that way for years you knucklehead.
FREE BIRD !!! (holding up lighter)
Second from the left is hot. Very talented fingers.
That's cool, and well done.
They would really rock a Oktoberfest beer-garden! I have for some reason always enjoyed a accordian tune glad to see somewhere in the world it is being played by someone under 50.
Must be something wrong with me....I really liked that......
on the other hand, put an accordian in an american kids hand and he'd have no idea what it is.
LOL!
Simply brilliant. Great talent can persevere through even an insane left wing bully dictatorship.
Accordions are probably the most contemporary musical instruments in North Korea
Amazing.........They all look like they've eaten recently :)
Cutting Edge music in North Korea
I'm more of a guitar guy but I have the utmost respect for accordion players, it is a very difficult instrument to master. I can usually pick up an unfamilliar instrument and figure out a little about how to play it but when I tried messing around with an accordion, the piano key side I got that's the easy side, but the other side with the chords, thats tough! My hat's off to these N.Korean musicians! What talent!
Same here. I managed to work out saxophone fingerings and embouchure reasonably well, but how anybody can play a melody with one hand, chords with the other, AND pump the thing all at the same time and get music to issue forth from it is way beyond my feeble musical abilities.
This is such a great and wonderful story; not for it's simplicity nor for it's newsworthiness, but It's like a flower growing from a crack in the concrete. The power of good that always prevails no matter how bleak things are or how small it may appear.
Just think. We know more about black holes in space than we do about N. Korea
I enjoyed it!
lol , will the corrupt US gov't try to extradite them to the states for violating SOPA copyright infringment :P
Yes Mark, the corrupt US gov't will extradite them then this same gov't will track your sarcastic a$$ down and waterboard you until you pee on yourself.
Unproud American = loser!
I would trade one Marks-971793 for all the North Korean children.
May be the best thing to ever come out of that country. They were almost enjoying it, although i'm not sure that's allowed
I LOVE IT!WELL DONE!
What a waste of Perfectly BeautifulTalent in that horrible country!