A while back, in the “Hier spricht der FerienPunkt, Kostinesti!” article, I tried to figure out the song behind the “Radio Vacanta” generic was and I failed (nor could I find it elsewhere). If there’s one motto to my existence (or at least to my self-image), that’s never give up.

Back in the 80s, Costinesti was the place to be on the Romanian Black Sea coast (the littoral, as we used to call it) and I started going there as soon as I was too old to go with my grandparents. They were taking me to 2 Mai, where we stayed at a “gazda / zimmer” Maria, who had a son Xenia and a cat Manix (judging by her taste in names, she may have been an XX star). There weren’t many doors but mostly long shreds of plastic hanging from the top door frame which were supposed to keep the flies away but weren’t doing such a great job at it. She also had a grape vine which we had to traverse on the way to the beach, which, back then just as now, had a sizeable portion dedicated to nudists and people enjoying “free love” outdoors.

Later on, an even less developed village, right next to the Bulgarian border, Vama Veche, was to be taken over by the “youth / hippie” crowd helped as it was by a musical group with the same name (song, album). I never got into that music, maybe because it belonged squarely to a new generation. I had my Compact (Carare peste Timp / original), Alexandru Andries (Soarele, Nisip, femeile), Holograf, Timpuri Noi and many others. Nonetheless, my very last vacation on the Black Sea Coast, sometime in the early 2000s, was spent in a tent, on the Vama Veche (in translation: “Old Border Crossing”) beach. Today, nobody can tell where the “New Vama” is, though I’d go for Delta.

Though I have some awesome memories in Costinesti, it should be noted that I did not graduate directly from 2Mai; first, I went in the “Red Tie” camp in the “Eforie” (we called it “Euphoria”) resort. After that camp, every one of my summer vacations in Romania would always start with a train trip “cu nashu” – i.e., without paying. Trains were frequent, dilapidated, slow, and taking anywhere between 2 and 6 hours. The trip was quite an adventure and the vacation had already started, in “Gara de Nord.” More than once I met some girl I was going to intimately get to know over the course of the next few days on the hallway where we, “blatistii” (freeloaders) spent most of our time, if not in a compartment.

radio

I first heard the jingle that followed the self-identification of the radio station before being fluent in English, so I made up the words I could not understand. Figuring out the meaning (together with getting a souped-up Aiwa Walkman and Schneider ski pants) was one of my most enduring 80s obsessions. That proved difficult even after becoming fluent in English, as my memories had now been “imprinted” in gibberish.

After a long search, I was able to find the musical fragment used in the "Radio-Vacanta Costinesti" generic. It is the end of a song from 1978, Just One More Night by Yellow Dog. Obviously, not the same as Radio Vacanta from Constanta (1, 2, 3, 2001, tmc, rc, sex).

Yellow Dog was a British based rock band from the 1970s. Founded by the American songwriter Kenny Young who had previously been a founder member of Fox, the band enjoyed a solitary Top 10 hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1978 with "Just One More Night". The single was written and produced by Young.

These are the relevant lyrics:

Oh, could I stay, could I please stay
I'll wash up the dishes
Let me, let me, let me stay
I'll make up the bed, yeah
Please won't you let me stay
I'll take out the garbage
[fading away] Please, please, one more night
NO !
[phone ring]

Could I stay, could I please stay?
I don't want a sharp bed
I don't want a marble bed

There’s quite a few more recordings on YouTube, and hopefully nobody will take them down (they worked now in 2014, when added): audio only,  Wiggy St Helens UK 2007.

I guess part of the reason this song eluded me for so long was my mistaken belief, when seeing the title as a result in some search, that it was probably a cover of Phil Collins’ One More Night, or George Michael’s One More Try, or Timmy T’s One More Try, which I knew for sure were not what I was looking for (though I had danced on these songs – we called them “blues-uri”). I guess the immediately next generation had its own such thing, complete with echo.

Coming up next, Гoвopит Paдиocтaнция Oтдыx, Kocтинeɯти!

Sources / More info: wiki, trilu,