Eduard Khil

Eduard Anatolyevich Khil (, ; 4 September 1934 – 4 June 2012), often anglicized as Edward Hill, was a Russian baritone singer.

Khil became known to international audiences in 2010, when a 1976 clip of him singing a non-lexical vocable version of the song "I Am Very Glad, As I Am Finally Returning Back Home" became an Internet meme, often referred to as "Trololol" or "Trololo", or as the "Russian Rickroll", and the song became associated with Internet trolling. The song's newfound prominence in Internet culture led him to adopt Mr. Trololo as a stage name.

Early life and education

Eduard Anatolyevich Khil was born on 4 September 1934, in Smolensk, to Anatoly Vasilyevich Khil and Yelena Pavlovna Kalugina. With his family breaking up, he was raised by his mother. During World War II, his kindergarten was bombed and he was separated from his mother and evacuated to Bekovo, Penza Oblast, where he ended up in a children's home, which lacked basic facilities and needs, including food. Despite the desperate situation, Eduard regularly performed in front of wounded soldiers in the nearby hospital. and Russia's most prestigious artist award, the People's Artist of the RSFSR, was awarded to Khil in 1974. He was so successful that the public called him the 'Symbol of Leningrad'.

Between 1977 and 1979, Khil taught solo singing at the Russian State Institute of Performing Arts.

Khil toured in over 80 countries

After his singing career faded in the early 1990s, Khil re-entered private life and worked in a café in Paris, singing cabaret. In 1996, upon the suggestion of his son Dmitry, he became part of Khil and the Sons, a joint project with the rock band Prepinaki.

For his 75th birthday, Khil was awarded the Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class in 2009 by Russia Pravdina died on 27 January 2024, at the age of 92.

The couple had one son, Dmitri, born 2 June 1963, and a grandson named Eduard (born in 1997) after his grandfather.

Illness and death On 8 April 2012, Khil suffered a stroke and was hospitalized with serious brain injuries at the Mariinsky Hospital in Saint Petersburg, where he fell into a coma immediately afterward. Doctors were initially optimistic about a partial recovery, but later retracted those statements. His condition was later reported as critical, with now irreversible brain damage. He died in the hospital in Saint Petersburg on 4 June 2012, from complications from the stroke, aged 77.

Among people who offered their condolences to Khil's family was Russia's President Vladimir Putin. He said about Eduard Khil:

Legacy

Internet videos In 2009, a 1976 video of Eduard Khil singing a non-lexical vocable version of the song "I Am Very Glad, As I Am Finally Returning Back Home" was uploaded to YouTube and became known as "Trololol" or "Trololo". The name "Trololo" is an onomatopoeia of the distinctive way Khil vocalizes throughout the song. The video quickly went viral and Khil became known as "Mr. Trololo" or "Trololo Man".

The song was written by Arkady Ostrovsky. Besides Khil, it was also performed by Valery Obodzinsky, Hungarian singer János Koós, and by Muslim Magomayev on the Little Blue Light programme in the Soviet Union.

According to Khil, the Trololo song originally featured lyrics which described a narrative about a cowboy riding a horse to his farm:

The Trololo video first appeared on some sites beginning on 21 February 2010, the most prominent of those being the "Trololo" website trololololololololololo.com that helped push the video into popular awareness, receiving more than 3,000,000 hits in its first month. It gained prominence on 3 March 2010, during a segment on The Colbert Report after appearing on Red Eye w/ Greg Gutfeld a handful of times over the previous couple of weeks. It was also parodied by actor Christoph Waltz on Jimmy Kimmel Live! as well as Craig Reucassel of The Chaser on the 2010 Australian TV specials Yes We Canberra!, and in September 2011 on the animated American television series Family Guy in its tenth-season premiere episode, "Lottery Fever".

"Trololo"'s popularity in turn re-ignited interest in Khil's singing career aside from his vocalised performance; for a time, the "Trololo" website |

Arkady Ostrovsky's son, Mikhail, gives another version of the vocalise story:

Khil's son has said that his father does not really understand what the Internet is, and was quoted as saying "He thinks maybe someone is trying to make a fool of him," and "He keeps asking, 'Where were all these journalists 40 years ago?'" as well as a United States ad campaign with the Volkswagen Beetle convertible that debuted during Super Bowl XLVII in 2013. It was also featured in the 2012 video game Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault. It was played briefly in the 2018 film Pacific Rim Uprising.

On 31 December 2011, Khil performed the Trololo song again live on a 2012 New Year's Russian holiday television special. Within the first week of January 2012, the new video of Khil performing his new version of the Trololo song had gone viral on YouTube again, earning over four million hits. Khil died later that year.

On 4 September 2017, Google displayed an interactive doodle of Khil singing the Trololo song to celebrate what would have been his 83rd birthday. Although it was released on the doodle site on 4 September, it was not released until the next day due to Labor Day in some countries.

Awards

Winner of Second All-Russian competition of performers (1962) Sopot International Song Festival second prize (1965) Honored Artist of the RSFSR (1968) Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1971) People's Artist of the RSFSR (1974) Lenin Komsomol Prize (1976) Order of Friendship of Peoples (1981) Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 4th class (2009) Utesov Prize

Filmography 1965 – Cheryomushki (Черёмушки) – vocal 1974 – Eduard Khil (documentary, directed by Marina Goldovskaya) 1985 – Golubye goroda (Голубые города, Blue Cities; film-concert, music by Andrei Petrov) 2004 – Yatinsotests – club manager 2011 – KikoRiki: Team Invincible – singer