Il paradiso della vita - Paratiisi

In our recurring series 'Both Sides Now' we know present the flip side of Bamboo's 1978 single finnpicked yesterday. It was called "Paratiisi" and, like the other side, didn't gain any greater popularity. Lyrics for this - as for the flip side song - were crafted by Pertsa Reponen. The original song was of Italian origin. A group called La Ragazza 77 recorded it as "Il paradiso della vita" (Paradise of Life) in 1968, but had no hit with it, neither in Italy nor elsewhere. But in 1968 famous Welsh pop group Amen Corner did an English version ("If Paradise Is Half As Nice") of the song, and it became number 1 in UK, and an international success. The peculiar name of the band came from 'The Amen Corner', a weekly venue at the Victoria Ballroom in Cardiff, Wales, where every Sunday night DJ would play the best soul music from the US. BTW, the Italian singer Patty Pravo heard the tune in Britain and as she didn't know of it's Italian origin, made her own Italian version ("Il paradiso) of it. And this time it was a hit - of course. We present here both the original version and Amen Corner's version. You can see A.C. perform the song, here.

Here's the triplet: