Radio Sweethearts

 

I checked. I haven’t written about Mulatu Astatke before.

I find this completely shocking. For the last two or three years, after almost every episode of “This American Life,” I have had this song stuck in my head:

Yègellé Tezeta

And I couldn’t be happier with that state of affairs. There aren’t many songs that make me happier than “YeÌ€gellé Tezeta,” and there are precious few songs that better reflect the bizarre spirit of innocent, mischevious misadventure (tinged, for good measure, with sex and espianoge, just for the hell of it) that marks almost every TAL story that uses it.

Also, because Astatke is Ethiopian, it makes me think of Ethiopian food, which just makes me boundlessly happy to eat.

 img, by the way: “Ethiopiques” by FlickrDelusions.