ra ra rasputin

I only recently discovered the Ayoub sisters, when somebody shared Ya Mariam El Bekr somewhere. Looking up their back catalogue, I was intrigued by their adaptation of Boney M's Rasputin even though I generally feel that I have heard too much of this band in the 70s/80s and am not that keen to revisit their work.



I did however enjoy the string duo version of Rasputin, and then watched the making of video, and then wondered where the tune actually comes from. Turns out half of it is an old Turkish folk song (there are also Arabic versions of it, so I don't really know which of the two is the original).

The Turkish song is called Kâtibim (sheet music here) and I really love the Turkish / Urdu mashup you can watch here (just ignore the blatant Coke advertising).

The Arabic version is called Ya Banat Iskandaria, and searching for this title I found a lovely version for flute, harp, percussion, here.

Other versions:
Charbel Rouhana (instrumental: oud)
Sung in Turkish and Arabic, with belly dancer.


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PS I'm really excited about these discoveries, and I think this warrants a new tag, let's call it #folk mash, for unearthing folk influences behind famous pop / rock / classical music. (next up, probably: a very famous Led Zeppelin track)