British-born singer Tim Crabtree (better known as Paper Beat Scissors) has shared a live performance video, filmed in his Montreal studio, of Wszystkiego Najlepszego by Ralph Kaminski. Crabtree learned the song in the early pandemic when his Polish friend Magda Waclawik was stuck an ocean away from her sister and requested he perform a version of it online as a birthday surprise for her (the song’s title is a common formal birthday greeting in Poland). Crabtree fell in love with the song and it’s been a staple at his live shows since.
“There’s such emotion caught in the song, such yearning, that it just transcended the fact I couldn’t understand a single word”, says Crabtree. “I just tried to learn the sounds syllable by syllable”, no mean feat when there are so many tongue-twisting sound combinations in spoken Polish that are just very unfamiliar to English mouths “but finding out more about the song there’s this tremendous power in the content – a one-way conversation to a lost childhood love – and the chorus being this incredibly formal greeting you’d use with someone you didn’t know that well, sung with such emotion.”
Paper Beat Scissors will perform in London on the 31st January, and says if you ask him nicely, he’ll consider playing the song.
31st January, Hill Station Cafe, London, Paper Beat Scissors w/ Seafoxes, 7pm
tickets: https://dice.fm/event/xyg8k-paper-beat-scissors-31st-jan-the-hill-station-cafe-london-tickets
Filmed by Phil Creamer, Wszystkiego Najlepszego is also our Song of the Day.