"Those Were the Days..."

The tune for this 1968 hit single was running through my head a few weeks ago, and a knick knack I happened to spy in Cracker Barrel this afternoon attributed the song to Gene Raskin, who transformed the traditional Russian folk melody into an international blockbuster for Welsh vocalist Mary Hopkin.

During the early 1960s Raskin and his wife played Greenwich Village folk clubs under the name Gene & Francesca, releasing an album in 1962 which included "Those Were the Days," a tune of either Russian or Ukrainian origins traditionally known as "Dorogoj Dlinnoyu" and dating back to the turn of the 20th century. In 1966, while Gene & Francesca were headlining London's Blue Lamp Club, Paul McCartney caught their act and two years later, while assembling material for his protégé Hopkin's Apple Records debut, he suggested she record "Those Were the Days."

The resulting single topped the British pop charts for six weeks in the autumn of 1968; Hopkin subsequently sold eight million copies worldwide, with the song becoming Apple's biggest hit outside of the Beatles' own recordings.

If you were alive in 1968, then you probably remember--indeed, cannot forget--this song.