At last it is raining in Spain.
To improve her diction Eliza Doolittle had to sing 'The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.'
Eliza Doolittle was the character in a play, written by Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, called Pygmalon. It was later adapted to the cinema under the name 'My Fair Lady'.
The phrase is not true at all but good for practising the sound /eɪ/
In case you are checking the blog to see what activities we are offering, here is a resumé of 2022.
So far we have discussed the Metaverse and NFTs(Non Fungible Tokens) on the suggestion of Belino who offered a fascinating glimpse into our new virtual reality with links to well documented articles.
We meet up on Wednesday evening after six on the first floor of La Universidad Popular in San Sebastián De Los Reyes where we chat informally about our news, borrow books and launch into our topic.
This Wednesday
As Spain is in dire need of some rain and people say here that if you sing badly you bring on the rain, we are going to lend a helping hand this week!
Lola has sent the words of three well known numbers. One to celebrate Carole King's 80th birthday! You've got a friend. Amazing.
The next one will be Hotel California by the Eagles and we will round off with American Pie, the reason being it was in the news recently because Taylor Swift has beaten its record as the longest hit to reach Number one in the American charts. Her song All Too Well is over ten minutes long.
Lola says she will save The Beatles for another day:)
And if you would like to join us, drop a note to asedow@gmail.com
The melody used to symbolize the EU comes from the Ninth Symphony composed in 1823 by Ludwig Van Beethoven, when he set music to the "Ode to Joy", Friedrich von Schiller's lyrical verse from 1785.
The anthem symbolises not only the
European Union but also Europe in a wider sense. The poem "Ode to
Joy" expresses Schiller's idealistic vision of the human race becoming
brothers - a vision Beethoven shared.
In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" theme as its anthem. In 1985, it was adopted by EU leaders as the official anthem of the European Union. There are no words to the anthem; it consists of music only. In the universal language of music, this anthem expresses the European ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity.
However, the music became enormously popular once again in 1970 when Spanish singer, Miguel Ríos, had a worldwide hit with a rock song set to the tune of the ninth symphony by Ludwig Van Beethoven entitled Himno De La Alegría 'Come Sing A Song Of Joy'
