Those Were the Days (song)

"Those Were the Days" is a song composed by Boris Fomin (1900–1948) but credited to Gene Raskin, who put a new English lyric to Fomin's Russian romance song "Dorogoi dlinnoyu", with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevsky. It deals with reminiscence upon youth and romantic idealism. It also deals with tavern activities, which include drinking, singing and dancing.

Welsh singer Mary Hopkin covered "Those Were the Days" as her debut single in 1968. Produced by Paul McCartney of the Beatles and arranged by Richard Hewson, the cover became a number one hit in the UK and Canada, and also reached number two in the US on the Billboard Hot 100, behind "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. It was number one in the first edition of the French National Hit Parade launched by the Centre d'Information et de Documentation du Disque. The song was featured on the US version of the debut album Post Card.

Early history
Georgian singer Tamara Tsereteli (1900–1968) and Russian singer Alexander Vertinsky made what were probably the earliest recordings of the song, in 1925 and 1926 respectively.

The song appears in the 1953 British/French movie Innocents in Paris, in which it was sung with its original Russian lyrics by the Russian Tzigane chanteuse Ludmila Lopato. Mary Hopkin's 1968 recording of it, with Gene Raskin's lyric, was a chart-topping hit in much of the Northern Hemisphere. On most recordings of the song, Raskin is credited as the sole writer, even though he wrote only the later English lyrics, which are not an English translation of the Russian lyrics, and not the music.

Later history
In the early 1960s, Raskin, with his wife Francesca, played folk music around Greenwich Village in New York, including the White Horse Tavern. Raskin, who had grown up hearing the song, and his wife, wrote new English lyrics to the old Russian music, and then copyrighted both music and lyrics in his own name. The Limeliters subsequently released a recording of the song on their 1962 LP Folk Matinee.

The Raskins were international performers and had played London's "Blue Angel" every year, always closing their show with the song. Paul McCartney frequented the club and, being quite taken with the song, he attempted to get several singers or groups, including the early Moody Blues, to record it. Failing at that, after the formation of the Beatles' own Apple Records label, McCartney immediately recorded Mary Hopkin performing the song at Abbey Road Studios in London. He later said, "I thought it was very catchy, it had something, it was a good treatment of nostalgia... (Hopkin) picked it up very easily, as if she'd known it for years." The song was eventually recorded in over twenty languages and by many different artists, including Gene and Francesca.

Hopkin's recording was produced by Paul McCartney with an arrangement by Richard Hewson and became a number-one hit on the UK Singles Chart. In the United States, Hopkin's recording reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100 (held out of the top spot for three weeks by "Hey Jude" by The Beatles) and topped the Billboard Easy Listening charts for six weeks. In the Netherlands, it topped the charts for two consecutive weeks.

The Russian origin of the melody was accentuated by an instrumentation that was unusual for a top-ten pop record, including balalaika, clarinet, hammered dulcimer or cimbalom, tenor banjo, and children's chorus, giving a klezmer feel to the song. Mary Hopkin played acoustic guitar on the recording, and Paul McCartney also played acoustic guitar and, possibly, percussion. The cimbalom was played by Gilbert Webster.

McCartney also recorded Hopkin singing "Those Were the Days" in other languages for release in their respective countries:
 * In Spain, Qué tiempo tan feliz
 * In West Germany, An jenem Tag
 * In Italy, Quelli erano giorni
 * In France, Le temps des fleurs

The non-English sets of lyrics were also recorded by Dalida and Sandie Shaw, with Shaw recording the English lyrics as well.

The B-side of the record in the UK and the United States was Pete Seeger's "Turn! Turn! Turn!", which had been a US number-one hit for The Byrds in 1965.

"Those Were the Days" was catalogue number APPLE 2. The APPLE 1 number had been given to an unreleased version of Frank Sinatra's "The Lady Is a Tramp", recorded specially in 1968 for Maureen Starkey's 22nd birthday, as a gift from Ringo Starr, under the name of "The Lady is a Champ". It was the second single to be released on the Apple label, the first— "Hey Jude" by the Beatles—had retained the sequential catalogue numbers used by Parlophone in the UK and Capitol in the US.

Hopkin's version was released on the back of her success on the television talent show Opportunity Knocks and, around the time of its release, popular singer Sandie Shaw was also asked to record the song by her management, feeling that it should be done by a "real" singer. Shaw's version was released as a single, but did not match the success of Hopkin's version.

At the peak of the song's success, a New York company used the melody in a commercial for Rokeach gefilte fish, arguing that the tune was an old Russian folk-tune and thus in the public domain. The commercial included the line "The perfect dish, Rokeach Gefilte Fish", wheras the English-language song would go "Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days.") Raskin successfully sued and won a settlement, since he had slightly altered the tune to fit his lyrics and had taken out the valid new copyright.

In the mid-1970s, after Hopkin's contract with Apple ended, "Those Were the Days" and "Goodbye" were re-recorded with producer Tony Visconti, whom she had married in 1971. Those re-recorded versions can be found on music compilations.

On 25 October 2010, Apple Records released Come and Get It: The Best of Apple Records, which included the original recordings of "Those Were the Days" and "Goodbye". The greatest hits compilation album contained songs by artists signed to the Beatles' Apple record label between 1968 and 1973, the first multi-artist Apple compilation.

On Christmas 1969, the President of Equatorial Guinea, Francisco Macías Nguema, had 150 alleged coup plotters executed in the national stadium while the amplifier system played the Mary Hopkin recording of "Those Were the Days".

The tune of "Those Were the Days" is used for the Republic of Ireland football chant "Come On You Boys in Green".

In 2011, Hopkin's version of the song was used by Nando's South Africa in a satirical advertisement featuring Robert Mugabe as the "Last Dictator Standing". The commercial was axed quickly, due to the controversy it created and condemnation from pro-Mugabe loyalists.

Notable recordings

 * In the 1970's, Bengali-Pakistani pop singer Alamgir sang the Urdu version of this song, mashed up to the tune of Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). The first section of the song is to the tune of Bang Bang titled "Mere Lafzo Ki Mehkar Tu" (you are the fragrance of my words). The second section of the song is sung to the tune of "Those Were the Days" titled "Aao Na Pyar Kare" (come let's love). The tunes of both songs were mashed together in the Urdu version.
 * In the 1970's, Bengali-Pakistani pop singer Alamgir sang the Urdu version of this song, mashed up to the tune of Nancy Sinatra's Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down). The first section of the song is to the tune of Bang Bang titled "Mere Lafzo Ki Mehkar Tu" (you are the fragrance of my words). The second section of the song is sung to the tune of "Those Were the Days" titled "Aao Na Pyar Kare" (come let's love). The tunes of both songs were mashed together in the Urdu version.