who is this man?
About
"Indeed, I am very glad that I finally am returning home" is a Soviet-era pop song composed by Arkady Ostrovsky, performed by Edward Hill (or Eduard Khil), a nationally-honored Russian singer since the late 1960s. Due to much exploitable elements of the music video, it has recently gained momentum as a popular bait-and-switch video, in similar vein to the more notorious usage of Rickroll.
Singing in the video is Edward Anatolevich Hill, a Soviet-era vocalist once celebrated as the “Honored Artist of the USSR” in 1968 and “People’s Artist of the USSR” in 1974.
Because Edward’s performance was poorly lipsynched (albeit to his own vocal track) and entirely composed of mouth music without any lyrics, the song was perceived by some westerners as highly eccentric. One of the surreal moments comes in at the chorus part, during which Edward can be heard singing “LOL” over and over again—as though he’s laughing directly at the viewer.
Of course, this is just a comical misinterpretation of him singing “Tro-lo-lo.” In fact, the song still remains quite familiar to the older Russian audiences; the Sovie Azerbaijani singer Muslim Magomaev had previously sung it in the 1960s Soviet television show The Blue Spark:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyAKBuU72p4
Additionally, there is an even earlier version of the song, sung by Valery Obodzinsky in 1967.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHf9BJdgdBo
It’s sung in a style called “vokaliz,” a cognate of the English “vocalise” or vocal exercise. Vokaliz is not, however, a vocal exercise but a style of singing similar to pantomime or even American scat singing of the 1920s.