Goldi Poldi Halleluja

(in response to an anonymous Oxford muse query - what is everyone listening to right now?)

"I have recently downloaded and am listening to a song first heard at the World Cup this late June. On the back of a whim and cheap flight and on impossibly short notice, I flew from Canada over to Germany and spent 10 days visiting old friends in Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin, cheering on the host nation and (of course) England. The atmosphere was electric, no better than afterwatching Germany beat Argentina with 10,000 Germanfans in the makeshift stadium built in the shadow of the Reichstag, and then heading to party on the Brandenburg Gate Fan Mile with my old classmate and Berlin resident, the 6'7" Torsten Schadendorf.

There was this song, in this tent - techno, repetitive, incessant. It was really just the chanting of a player's name, set to enthusiastic music. Far from their best player, just the young 18 year old second striker, born in Poland, who happened to be in the right place at the right time for a few passes from the superior and experienced Klose. And here were hundreds, thousands of people screaming and dancing to his name at the end, as it played over and over, as if in some mosh pit.

Lu-lu-lu, Lukas Podolsi.

The absurdity of this song's very existence made it all the better. It was a country's barbaric, elated yawp. Listening to it now, in an office cubicle back home, I am reminded of wondrous memories, of yet more travel on the road, and how the best moments in life are often those most divorced from any tangible reality or rationality, suggesting just a feeling of inexplicable momentum and dynamism. That strange, marvellous, and fortunate accidents are surely in store. Soon.

Lu-lu-lu, Lukas Podolski. Honestly."