Vysotsky

[Dmitri]

I think this clip was posted before but it's worth reposting IMO, this man was a freakin' genius of a poet and had one of the most incredible voices I've ever heard. (He was also the first person I ever heard who managed to actually sing consonants.)

His voice transfers a lot even without the language, but he was at least as much of a poet as he was a singer, so I thought I'd give the translation a shot, for all ya English speakers. (Didn't like the existing ones that I saw, because IMO they lost the essence in their attempts to maintain the rhythm/match the melody.)

I would suggest you read it first to get the general sense of at least what the song is about, and then just listen to that voice... I guarantee you that by the end of it you will stop paying any attention to the quality of the guitar sound.


Anyway, FWIW; hope maybe at least one or two of you out there will enjoy.


Capricious Horses

(0:17)
Along the drop above the abyss, right on the very edge
I am lashing my horses with a whip, urging them on
Not enough air -- I'm drinking the wind, swallowing the fog
Sensing, with a deadly rapture, that I'm about to vanish

(0:54)
Just a little slower, horses, just a little slower
Don't obey my painful whip
But my horses turned out to be capricious
No more time to live, no more time to finish the song

(1:29)
I will give water to the horses
I will complete the verse
For just one more moment
I will stand on the edge

(1:54)
We made it -- impossible to be late when visiting God
So why then the angels there are singing with such evil voices?
Or is it the jingle bell going crazy with wailing?
Or is it me yelling at the horses not to pull the sleigh so fast?

(2:28)
Just a little slower, horses, just a little slower
I'm begging you not to fly so fast, galloping
But my horses turned out to be capricious
Well, since I failed to survive, maybe I can at least finish the song...

(3:02)
I will give water to the horses
I will complete the verse
For just one more moment
I will stand on the edge

[GrahamB]

Cool. But in the singer/songwriter acoustic guitar vein I've still never read any poetry better than Leonard Cohn's Chelsea Hotel No. 2, ever (ok, maybe, just maybe his Hallelujah has even better lyrics, but it's been so over covered in the UK we're all sick of it now thanks to X Factor):

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
giving me head on the unmade bed,
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.



And in this terrible live version he tells a nice story about the song at the start.

[Dmitri]

That's very good stuff, but remember, it rhymes and is in rhythm with the music... it's the original song in its original language.
Even if I were an excellent poet and were able to somehow "transpose" those Russian lyrics to be in rhyme and to match the song AND somehow magically maintain the feel of the original content, it would still be a very different experience, because he (Vysotski) would still not be singing those words...
(And BTW the rhyme and rhythm there are outstanding, just FYI.)
So, ya know, I beg to appreciate the huge disadvantage there... it can't possibly compete with experiencing a song in its native language.

Anyway... That song you posted reminded me of this awesome bit of lyrics (one of my top favorites as far as lyrics go), from The Wall:

Day after day
Love turns gray
Like the skin of a dying man

And night after night
We pretend it's alright
But I have grown older
And you have grown colder
And nothing is very much fun anymore

And I can feel
One of my tunes coming on
I feel
Cold as a razor blade
Tight as a tourniquet
Dry as a funeral drum...

[internalenthusiast]

thanks for posting that dmitri. nice clip, and passion. i enjoyed it.

on a (very) different note, do you like nabokov? i've probably read most of what he's written in english, though most of it years ago. but i still think his writing is stunning.

[Teazer]

That is quite the voice!
As we're talking solo guitarist singers....Victor Jara.


" Once more they want to stain my country with workers' blood -- those who talk of liberty yet have blackened hands, those who want to separate the mother from her children & reconstruct the cross Christ carried./ They want to hide the infamy they've bequeathed down the centuries. but the color of the murderers cannot be wiped from their face. Already thousands and thousands have sacrificed their blood, & its generous streams have multiplied the loaves of bread./ I want to live now with my child and my friend, to go together toward the springtime we're building each day. Your masters of misery can't scare me with your threats; the star of hope continues to be ours!/ Winds of the people bear me, carry me, scatter my heart and blow thru my throat. So that the poet can go on singing even when death takes me down the roads of the people, both now and forever."



Poem 15
By Pablo Neruda

I’m fond of you when you are silent, because it’s as if you were absent,
And you hear me from afar, and my voice does not reach you.
It seems like your eyes had flown away from you,
And that a kiss had sealed your lips.

As all the things that are filled with my soul,
You emerge from then, filled with my soul.
A butterfly from a dream, you are like my soul,
Like the word Melancholy.

I’m fond of you when you are silent, as if you were distant.
And you stay still, a butterfly in mourning.
And you hear me from afar, and my voice does not reach you:
Let me too be silent in your silence.

Let me talk to you in your silence too,
Silence as clear as a light, plain as a ring.
You are like the night, silent and starry.
Your silence is that of a star, as distant and simple.

I’m fond of you when you are silent, because it’s as if you were absent.
As distant and painful as if you had died.
A word then, a smile, is enough.
And I’m happy, because it’s not true.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

Fucking Poets!! Get off my lawn!! lol

good stuff.

[Dmitri]

on a (very) different note, do you like nabokov? i've probably read most of what he's written in english, though most of it years ago. but i still think his writing is stunning.

I only read two of his novels (including the famous one of course), many years ago... Had very marginal exposure to his poetry, but I vaguely remember liking it. He's well-liked indeed, I would imagine that's for a good reason.
Check out Pasternak, the guy's at least as good, though I think a bit darker, IIRC. They lived around the same time, so the comparison might be interesting. (Looked up -- wow, almost exactly the same time; one 1899-1977 and the other 1890-1960...)

[emre]

I like this thread. Great stuff.

One of my favorite poems of all time is from Pasternak, "Night". And come on, he's not always too dark, for a Russian poet.

[GrahamB]

I've always liked this:

The Snow Man


WALLACE STEVENS

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

[internalenthusiast]

thanks for the tip on pasternak, dmitri. i'd forgotten about him.