This is a famous song called Those Were The Days. It is a English translation of a Russian song and it is very famous all over the world. But I think that very few people do justice to the spirit of the original Russian song. The Leningrad Cowboys (the version embedded above) come the closest, but they put a little bit to much cheeses into it for my tastes.
The song is Non, je ne regrette rien. Various discussions about the best English translation here.
Jonathan Coulton (the man who wrote the above song) was also the one to write the song for the end of Valve’s game “Portal.” That song is more famous than this one, but you have to have some experience with “Portal” to appreciate it.
Rejected for Essay of the Week….
Chinese inflation and European defaults
Rejected for Rant of the Week…..
Poem of the Week had no competition. Nothing else would do for this week. The only real debate was over what version to use and if it should be to a site with better formatting or one with a basic explanation associated with it.
A very good singer. Would have been even better if I could have found a high quality clip of her covering a better song/poem.