Trololo / Russian Rickroll

About

I am Glad, ‘cause I’m Finally Returning Back Home (Russian: Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой), or more commonly known as the “Trololo song”, is a Soviet-era pop song composed by Arkady Ostrovsky, performed by Eduard Khil (AKA Edward Khill, Edward Hill), a nationally-honored Russian singer since the late 1960s. Due to much exploitable elements of the music video, it became known as a popular bait-and-switch video, in similar vein to the more notorious usage of Rickroll.

Origin

In November 2009, YouTuber “RealPapaPit” uploaded a video clip titled “I am very glad, because I’m finally back home”. It has since been renamed Mr. Trololo original upload

The official upload of this 1976 performance was posted a year later, in March 2010 to the channel saitEdHil . It is of a much higher-quality than RealPapaPit’s version:

Singing in the video is “Eduard Anatolyevich Khil”, a Soviet-era vocalist once celebrated as the “Honored Artist of the USSR” in 1968 and “People’s Artist of the USSR” in 1974.

Because Eduard’s performance was poorly lipsynched (albeit to his own vocal track) and entirely composed of mouth music without any lyrics, the song was perceived by some westerners as highly eccentric. One of the surreal moments comes in at the chorus part, during which Eduard can be heard singing “LOL” over and over again--as though he’s laughing directly at the viewer.

Of course, this is just a comical misinterpretation of him singing “Tro-lo-lo.”, which is sung in a style called “vokaliz,” a cognate of the English “vocalise” or vocal exercise. Vokaliz is not, however, a vocal exercise but a style of singing similar to pantomime or even American scat singing of the 1920s. The song still remains quite familiar to the older Russian audiences; there is an earlier version of the song, sung by Valery Obodzinsky in 1967:

Another version of the song was sung by Koós János in the 1960s (with some women also singing towards the end):

Additionally, the Sovie-Azerbaijani singer Muslim Magomaev had also sung it in the 1960s Soviet television show Little Blue Light:

Also, in 1968 and 1984 respectively, Eduard Khil himself, has made other versions of the song:

Spread

A clip of the Trololo laughing section was uploaded by YouTuber KamoKatt on December 20th, 2009 and this has since inspired a number of video derivatives.

A Single Serving Site trololololololololololo.com/ was created on February 26th, 2010.

One of the primary sources of views to the video first came from the article on Trolls on Lurkmore.ru, the Russian port of the Lurkmore Wiki; evidenced by point G on the graph above.
(Click here for the Google Translated English version)

On January 27th, 2010, A Reddit thread called trololololololololo was posted by gn3xu5.

RealPapaPit’s version of the video once had the original Cryllic title Я очень рад, ведь я, наконец, возвращаюсь домой was posted on Youtube, but it didn’t begin to accrue many views until after the video made it’s Reddit Debut. RayWilliamJohnson’s video Communist Roll’d can also attribute to some of the views on this version.

By February 21st, the video appeared on The Huffington Post (Point C) and by March 1st it appeared on BoingBoing (points A and B) further increasing the public awareness of this bizarre video.

Trends

Although Google Insights returns a years-long trend for “Edward Hill” it should not be assumed that they are all for this Edward Hill, as the name refers to a number of historical figures. However, searches for “Edward Hill” and “trololo” have shown a marked increase in Feburary of 2010.

Derivatives

Edward Hill’s Response

Edward responds to the popularity of the video:

Appearance on two Russian variety show:

Tribute Performances

In December 2010, the Gifford Children’s Choir from Racine, Wisconsin performed Edward Hill’s ‘Trololo’ song at their holiday concert.

A parody also appeared on Family Guy.

Other Sources

• Edward Gil on Oddculture.com
• EDWARD ANATOLEVICH HILL on 3 Quarks Daily