ORIGINAL PARODY SONG-LYRICS
MUSICAL UNDERPINNINGS: "Moscow Nights"(Подмосковные вечера, Podmoskovnie vechera), was a popular song recorded by the Chad Mitchell Trio, 1963. You can listen to the well-known Trio's version on YouTube HERE, or a version with English translation HERE.
The music was first developed as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Matusovsky in 1955, but changed at the request of the Ministry of Culture for use in a documentary about a national athletic competition. The tune was subsequently popularized in the West, in the middle of the Cold War era, by Van Cliburn in 1958, and recorded with commercial success by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, and the Chad Mitchell Trio in the early 60s.
The music was first developed as "Leningrad Nights" by composer Solovyov-Sedoi and poet Matusovsky in 1955, but changed at the request of the Ministry of Culture for use in a documentary about a national athletic competition. The tune was subsequently popularized in the West, in the middle of the Cold War era, by Van Cliburn in 1958, and recorded with commercial success by Kenny Ball and the Jazzmen, and the Chad Mitchell Trio in the early 60s.
PARODY COMPOSED: The song's tune was used by Giorgio Coniglio (registered pseudonym) for a historical allegory written in August 2018. The story concerns Graeco-Roman history during the Byzantine period, and was in part inspired by trips to Turkey and Greece, as well as by the song "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", a swing-era hit with a very catchy tune (whose lyrics are a bit truncated re bona-fide history).
UKULELE and GUITAR-FRIENDLY LINK: Our whole series of songs can be found in a friendly format for ukulele (and guitar)-players on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE" with chord-charts for both the parody and original song, as well as helpful performing suggestions.
To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Constantinopolis" (the seer of Byzantion) on your favorite instrument, click HERE.
CONSTANTINOPOLIS
(to the tune of "Moscow Nights")
Boasts Byzántion’s seer, “Constantine will found,
Nova Roma, his new cosmopolis.They’ll construct right here;
These lyrics have been moved, along with ukulele chord suggestions, to a posting on our song-blog "Silly Songs and Satire".
* the prediction was made by the Seer early in the fourth century A.D.
Byzántion (Greek), later known as Byzantium (Latin) was at that time a moderate-sized Greek colony-city on the Bosporus. It was chosen by the Roman Emperor Constantine to become the eastern capital of his empire.
As capital of the Roman Empire (also called Romania), the grand city was known as Constantinopolis, or Konstantinoupolis, for most of its history, i.e. until 1453 A.D. (later as Istanbul by the Turks). The term 'Byzantine Empire' has only been in use by Western historians since that time.
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