Start Wearing Purple

The first time I heard Gogol Bordello's Start Wearing Purple, on the Mark Radcliffe show the other week, I thought it was awful (and a little scary... a bit 'You're MY wife now!'). The second time he played it, it started to grow on me. By yesterday night, when they were in session on the show, I'd completely fallen for it.

"Start wearing purple wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits they will all vanish, I promise
It's just a matter of time

I met you when you were a twenty, and I was twenty
But thought that some years from now
A purple little little lady will be perfect
For dirty old and useless clown

I know it all from Diogenis to Foucault
From Lozgechkin to Paspartu
I ja kljanus obostzav dva paltza
Schto muziko poshla ot Zzukov Mu!

Party!

So Fio-Fio-Fioletta! Etta! Va-va-va-vaja dama ti moja!
Eh podayte nam karetu, votetu, i mi poedem k ebenjam!

So yeah, start wearing purple wearing purple
Start wearing purple for me now
All your sanity and wits they will all vanish, I promise
It's just a matter of time

To me it sounds like David Devant & His Spirit Wife (their lead singers do bear an uncanny resemblance to each other) - or the Pogues (if they were Ukrainian gypsy punks from New York). Singer Eugene Hutz explained the song's origins to Mark Radcliffe:

It's one of the very few songs I wrote for a girl. I just moved in with my girlfriend in New York. We had a neighbour: an old woman who was always dressed in purple head to toe. She was clearly bonkers. So whenever my girlfriend and I had an argument and she would start screaming at me, I would say: you might as well start wearing purple now."

I love it. It's funny, sinister, exuberant and gets the blood racing... "La-la la-la laaaaaaaaaaa!"

BBC News: Ukraine gypsy punk on world stage

Comments

[Anonymous]

sono totalmente d'accordo con te!!!!= I t-o-ta-l-l-y agreeeee whith you....
giulia

[ButcherBeast]

have you had the chance to see them live yet? they are literally the thing that changed my life. i have seen them four times now and have been kissed by eugene **swoon**

they are so magical and have really made a huge impact on me. i like to hear other people have been changed by them and their lyrics too :)