Lapsed Modernist

There are plenty of completely absurd and nonsensical Soviet pop songs. There's a power ballad about a man who has a ticket for the ballet, but not for the tram car, and has nightmares about the tram car chasing him down in the street as all he can do is plead "I only have a ticket for the ballet, not for the tram car!" There is a protopunk tune about a soccer ball that falls in love with a hen but once they get married she won't let him play. There is one where the energetic refrain can be translated as:

Oh why why why, why why why, why why why
Was the streetlight green?
Because because because because
It was in love with life.

You think I am kidding? I am not.

So, in honor of my tentatively planned trip to Rapa Nui (shhhh), I give you a selection from one of the most perplexing and beloved pop songs of my childhood, concerning the fate of a young woman from Easter Island and her unfortunate lover.

In Russian it goes...

U devushki s ostrova Pashi
Ukrali lyubovnika tigri
Ukrali lyubovnika v forme chinovnika
I syeli v sadu pod bananom.

I kazhduyu pyatnitsu, lish solntse zakatitsya
Kogo-to zhuyut pog bananom...

In translation it means

A young woman from the Easter Island
Has had her lover stolen by tigers
Her lover was stolen,
Her bureocrat lover,
And eaten in the garden under the banana tree.

And every Friday as soon as the sun sets,
Someone is being chewed under the banana tree...

Back to the rainforest at the crack of dawn.