Will Glahé

YouTube is ruining my life.

Will Glahé was some kind of a German polka artist, famous for the Beer Barrel Polka. In late 1957 his Liechtensteiner Polka found itself on the Billboard chart, in one of those freak occurrences that used to happen.

I don’t remember where I got it. It was probably on some London Records compilation, “Instrumental Hits of the 50s” or something. And until now I’ve been very happy.

See, it’s an instrumental, apart from shouts of “jah jah jah” interspersed throughout. And I found it kind of amusing that Joel Whitburn listed it as “foreign,” given its limited lyrical content.

But I looked it up on YouTube. And lo and behold, it’s not an instrumental at all. It has words, and singing, all in German. So what do I have? I have no idea. It sounds pretty authentic, but it’s obviously not the hit version. How sad.

If not for YouTube, I’d have died happy. Now I’ll die knowing that I don’t have the hit version of Liechtensteiner Polka.

And how tragic is that…

---

Will Glahé

• Liechtensteiner Polka – An accordion fan’s paradise. The original of this song, which sounds like it belongs in a Hollywood version of a Bavarian drinking establishment, spent 23 weeks in the top 100. That was in the fall of 1957. Long live diversity…