Red Rubber Ball - Punainen kuu

One of the lesser known Finnish 'trucker songs' is "Punainen kuu" (Red moon) that Rexi (see earlier entry) recorded in 1977. It was released on his "Puhtaat purjeet" -album. The lyrics and arrangements were done by two known professionals, Raul Reiman and Jori Sivonen respectively. There's no moon in the original song "Red Rubber Ball"; the 'ball' is the sun ("The mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball") The song is in a way extraordinary, becouse it seems to be the only Paul Simon song that Simon & Garfunkel didn't record themselves at the time. The song became a big hit (number 2 in the Billboard Hot 100) in the 1966 as a version recorded by US band The Cyrkle. They had one other Top 20 hit and faded quickly out of fame, disbanding in 1967. "Red Rubber Ball" was actually co-written by Paul Simon and Bruce Woodley of The Seekers. And The Seekers also recorded it for their 1966 album Come the Day. We present here the Cyrkle's hit version and a rare live version by Simon & Garfunkle, with Art Garfunkel commenting on the song in the introduction.

Updated on 18.09.2009: Added Seekers' version

Here's the quadruplet: