Those Were the Days

"Those Were the Days" is a song credited to Gene Raskin, who put a new English lyric to the Russian romance song "Дорогой длинною" (Romance transliteration "Dorogoj dlinnoju", literally "By the long road"), composed by Boris Fomin (1900–1948) with words by the poet Konstantin Podrevsky. It deals with reminiscence upon youth and romantic idealism. It also deals with tavern activities, which include drinking, singing and dancing. Mary Hopkin's 1968 debut single of "Those Were the Days", which was produced by Paul McCartney of the Beatles, and arranged by Richard Hewson, became a number one hit on the UK Singles Chart and on the Canadian RPM Magazine charts. The song also reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100, behind "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. It was number one in the first edition of the French National Hit Parade launched by the Centre d'Information et de Documentation du Disque. The song was featured on the US version of the debut album Post Card. Early history Georgian singer Tamara Tsereteli (1900–1968) and Russian singer Alexander Vertinsky made what were probably the earliest recordings of the song, in 1925 and 1926 respectively. The song appears in the 1953 British/French movie Innocents in Paris, in which it was sung with its original Russian lyrics by the Russian Tzigane chanteuse Ludmila Lopato. Mary Hopkin's 1968 recording of it with Gene Raskin's lyric was a chart-topping hit in much of the Northern Hemisphere. On most recordings of the song, Raskin is credited as the sole writer, even though he wrote only the later English lyrics (which are not an English translation of the Russian lyrics) and not the music.