Day 21: Helo Malenka

One for the real Bellamy nerds, this song comes from The Better Land which was an album released by Sharon and the Students. Bellamy drifted in and out of the line-up, but for this album (that was only released on cassette, and I don't think there were many copies made) he was there and sang on a number of tracks.

Sharon and the Students sang both Shape Note / Sacred Harp songs and the occasional Balkan song. Since I discovered this album thanks to someone doing a rip onto YouTube I've somewhat fallen in love with it.

On the album, Peter sings this with Alan Rose and Mike Hockenhull having apparently learned it from The Pennywhistlers (who themselves recorded it on Folksongs of Easter Europe).

I have almost certainly butchered the pronunciation on this as a non-native speaker, so please accept my apologies in advance. I've also attempted a translation but this song is almost certainly using a native dialect so it's likely to be “close” but not accurate. Get in touch if you know better than I do!