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Category: Music

Spanish Prisoner

Spanish Prisoner

Carter Burwell score for Spanish Prisoner

David Mamet films are not for everyone, but they have an unmistakable style. I remember renting The Spanish Prisoner and being fascinated by it’s styling and story. As someone that has worked at a Fortune 50 company and been privy to many a secret project or two over the years, it was a great story about working on secret projects and the shadowy possibilities of espionage and double-dealing.

While it’s not the best movie (it has some odd holes and a good dose of deus ex machina), I remember the sound track fondly as setting the mysterious mood. It’s by Carter Burwell – so give it a listen and imagine yourself in a world where you never know who is really on your side…

What does english sound like to foreigners

What does english sound like to foreigners

“Prisencolinensinainciusol” is a song composed by the Italian singer Adriano Celentano, released as a single in 1972.

The song is intended to sound to its Italian audience as if it is sung in English – English with a “Bob Dylan-esque” American accent. The lyrics, however, are deliberately unintelligible gibberish with the exception of the words “all right”. Celentano’s intention with the song was not to create a humorous novelty song but to explore communication barriers. “Ever since I started singing, I was very influenced by American music and everything Americans did. So at a certain point, because I like American slang—which, for a singer, is much easier to sing than Italian—I thought that I would write a song which would only have as its theme the inability to communicate. And to do this, I had to write a song where the lyrics didn’t mean anything.”

Here’s 2 more examples of what American English sounds like to foreigners.

Ballet goes sideways

Ballet goes sideways

The Concert is a 1956 ballet by Jerome Robbins. It’s a spoof of the orchestral performance experience.

The ballet includes this piece titled “Mistake Waltz” in which some of the dancers are a bit out of sync. The above video shows a performance by the Pacific Northwest Ballet. Every error is completely intentional.