For your Thanksgiving viewing pleasure, here's a delightfully rousing tune performed in a most interesting manner. Behold this Austrian Tyrolean "tongue choir" performing what Classic FM describes as "a rumbling, a cappella chorus" created "by flicking their tongues back and forth."
Classic FM continues:
It's not an unusual practice for singers to practise with their tongue out. It helps to remove any tension in the muscle and gets everything nice and loose. But this 'tonguing' – the wholesome kind, before you start raising an eyebrow – appears to be deadly serious.
It will come as no surprise that the subreddit "Not Tim and Eric" had a field day with the clip. One person stated, accurately, that "this ranks highly among best camera pans of all time." Another exclaimed, "I completely expected the camera to pan across John Cleese and Eric Idle!" and someone replied, "Same here. I was convinced it was Monty Python and came here to find out 🤣."
Many internet sleuths believe that the choir is performing "Moscow Nights," a Soviet Russian patriotic song that was written by Mikhail Matusovsky and composed by Vasily Solovyov-Sedoy, and then made popular through a recording by Vladimir Troshin in 1956.
Others insist that the song so gracefully being tongued by the choir is called "A Gaudi Muass Sein" by Austrian composer Franz Mika. I think this is because on the clip, there's a heading that reads: "A Gaudi muass sein, 1982 #ORFarchiv."
I needed desperately to find out more about this choir, so I tried my best to figure out where this short video—which Classic FM describes as "the video the Internet was made for—came from.
I searched and discovered that "ORF" most certainly refers to the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation. I found a 45-minute video called "A Gaudi Muass Sein," from August 17, 1982, by ORF and starring various actors and musicians like Fritzner Dorfmusikanten and Zillertaler Schürzenjäger. I watched the entire show, though, and, while there was plenty of entertaining dancing and yodeling, our tongue choir in question never appeared.
I have searched and searched and cannot figure out where this captivating music comes from, so I fear I will disappoint you with my lack of knowledge. I really did try. But hopefully you'll forgive me and just enjoy the clip. I even found this hilarious parody for you. Happy Thanksgiving!
