Greetings, fellow sentient beings of the Universe!
This time, I want to share some childhood experience with local music about...economy. Yeah, we kids knew all about inflation and hyperinflation at an early age. I remember arguing with a friend before we were ten or something. While we still played football on the street (almost no traffic and no parked cars on the streets back then but you can't play there now). I was obviously talking about bank savings or some such when he said 'Inflation is going to eat up all your money.' I had almost no idea what he was saying until he had said it and then I kind of knew.
A brief and not very accurate history of our national currency, the Bulgarian Lev, now abbreviated BGN. Inaccurate, because I was a kid after all and it's all childhood memories.
End of totalitarian rule (false GDP-and-stuff data) it's about 5 BGN for 1 USD — that part I knew nothing about;
1996 it's about 175 for 1 USD;
1997-8 it's about 3000 BGN for 1 USD;
People protest, a government resigns, things normalize at...1600 BGN for 1 USD. Denomination and 1 000 BGN becomes 1 BGN, pegged to the Deutsche Mark at who knows what cost (not me, I'm about 12-years-old at the time).
In 1995, a group of actors (calling themselves UFO) who are also showmen and musicians issue their album called Ех, Канада! or roughly translated as Ah, Canada!
The lyrics are mostly fun for me at the time although I am quite aware of the pain and irony behind them.
A song about Immigration — They stole everything from me and I am selling my last shirt and my red Lada (a car brand) for a ticket and a visa to Montreal;
Political division — I am in another party no point seeing you anymore;
Class division — I went to jail, I became a person, I am driving by in my Mercedes before flying to Paris and I see my ex-girlfriend selling fast food on the street so I tip her well; My son's got problems with the classes at school, his bodyguard is no good, I try to teach them classics and the basics of everything but nothing works. I give my son money so that he takes responsibility and he suddenly starts getting excellent marks. Bribing the teachers, as I later learn;
And my personal favorite...
Ода за българския лев — An Ode To The Bulgarian Lev
Let them hyenas accumulate dollars, accumulate Yen! Only the Bulgarian Lev is what I'm bullish about. So, brothers, hodl on to the Lev, hodl on to...
...
Tell me art creators are not prophets ;)
Well, we held on and we're still here.
Peace!
Manol