Why the Spanish simply love rancid foreign musical clichés

Trevor @ Tuesday August 26th 2008 18:33

Easy: in a country prone to civil war it’s important to have something everyone can agree on, regardless of their local ethnic and linguistic allegiances. The Balkans form the obvious comparison: chronically incapable of even vaguely democratic self-government, they imported German princes in the nineteenth century and are now erecting statues of Bob Marley. So I suppose you could say that when sweet young things stop asking you at parties whether you like the Beatles, it’s a sign either that base and superstructure have moved on or that we’re in for interesting times.

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During this walk the other day with the man who threw his underpants at Tom Jones and his gorgeous new missus we had a bizarre bar conversation with another man who, thanks to the intervention of the Mustangs and someone else, got in free to the Beatles concert in the Monumental bull ring in 1965. The merits of each of the fab four were expounded, and the conclusion reached that John was the leader, Paul the creative, Ringo the loony, and, finest and strangest of all, Jordi Khárison, Catalan guitar god.


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  • July 31 1568 RecĂ­bese por un anĂłnimo la noticia de que el primogĂ©nito de Felipe II estaba sin esperanzas de vida.
  • July 31 1808 On the 31st of July the ImpĂ©rieuse silenced, and Lord Cochrane landed with his marines, under Lieutenant James Rivers Hore of that corps, and took possession of the castle of Mongal; an important post completely commanding a pass in the road from Barcelona to Gerona, then besieged by the French,...
  • July 31 1848 En la iglesia parroquial de Ntra. Sra. de Belen que fue de los PP. de la Compañía de Jesus, se celebra con toda solemnidad, la fiesta de san Ignacio de Loyola. Las religiosas de la Enseñanza de la misma Ăłrden tributan tambien á este fundador solemnes cultos.
  • July 31 1909 APOLOGY FOR BARCELONA.; Interested In Industry, the People Object to Fighting.
    HENRY DALMASES. July 31, 1909, Saturday I notice in your dispatches of to-day in regard to the Spanish situation that the disturbances in Barcelona and other Spanish Eastern points are classed as ma...
  • July 31 1909 120 REBELS SHOT AT BARCELONA; Authoritative Personage Says 10 Courts-Martial Sat Two Days to Try Them. MANY ARRESTS IN MADRID Authorities Guarding Against Strike To-Morrow — Rebels Still Hold Much of Barcelona, Reports Say. SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain, by Way of the French Frontier, July 31...
  • July 31 1909 AMERICANS IN BARCELONA.; Feared Two Women Cousins of Mrs. Lemoine, the Actress, Are Victims.
  • July 31 1926 Occasionally the old fashioned iron extinguisher of censorship clapped upon Spain by Dictator Premier Primo de Rivera springs a tiny leak, spurts a dark smoke puff of news. Last week the official version of what occurred when the Dictator visited Barcelona was that he “received an enthusias...

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