Ray Manzarek: Carmina Burana

Last week I posted that video of misheard lyrics to “O Fortuna”, from Carl Orff’s playful (and occasionally disturbing) music set to poems and lyrics written by medieval monks who were no better than they should be.

The “Gopher Tuna” video uses a fairly standard interpretation of “O Fortuna”; but back in the early ’80’s Ray Manzarek, keyboard player for The Doors, recorded his own arrangement of the entire Carmina Burana on modern instruments. The vocals are traditional, but the music is…interesting. I rather like it, though I wouldn’t want it as my only recording of Orff’s work.

And since I found a Youtube “video” of the entire album, you can give it a listen. If you know Carmina Burana, you’ll want to at least sample different parts of the video.