Sunday, July 12, 2009

Agu (with Zhenya Kogan)

Words: Andrei Soroker
Music: Andrei Soroker and Zhenya Kogan



Агу (послушать)

Когда мы поуменеем,
Мы будем понимать.
Мы будем осторожней,
Мы будем выбирать.
А пока мы молодые,
Пока мы можем все,
Судьба нам несомненно
Удачу принесет.

Мы верим в робинзонов
В героев и в любовь;
Не верим в расстоянья
И в пролитую кровь.
Мы видим неизвестность
И мы в нее идем;
Шагаем мимо слабых
Нехоженным путем.

Морозным ранним утром,
Когда еще темно
Заводим самолеты,
Взлетаем как в кино.
Мы маленькие дети,
Нам хочется играть;
Нам страшно не бывает
Нам трудно выбирать.

3 сентября 2001



Припев

На крыльце мы сидим.
Город спит — мы гудим.

11 июля 2009

Agu (listen)

As soon as we wisen up,
We will understand.
We will be more cautious,
We will learn to make choices.
But while we are young
While can do anything,
The fate will undoubtedly
Bring us luck.

We believe in castaways,
In heroes and in love.
We don't believe in distances,
We don't believe in bloodshed.
We see the unknown,
And travel straight to it,
Passing up the week ones,
Via an unwalked path.

In the cold early morning,
While the air is still dark,
We start our airplanes
And take off, like in the movies.
We are small children,
We want to play.
We fear nothing,
It's hard for us to choose.

3 September 2001



Chorus

We're sitting on the porch.
The town is asleep — we are humming.

11 July 2009

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Surprising Proverbial Congruences in English and Russian — № 1


English: Catch old birds with chaff, you cannot.
Russian: Стреляного воробья на мякине не проведешь. (You can't trick a sparrow that survived a shooting with chaff.)

The Russian version incorporates another saying — стреляный воробей (a sparrow that survived a shooting) — which means old hand in English.

Man from Kemerovo — Translation

Man from Kemerovo
Words by Boris Grebenshchikov
Music by Aquarium
Translation by Andrei Soroker

I had some problems;
I took things a little too far;
The lowest bottom of the most-remote hell
Appeared not terribly far.
I called my mother,
And my mother was right —
She said: "Immediately, you must call
The man from Kemerovo".

He uses words sparingly, like De Niro;
One must be mentally ill to argue with him.
Catch him with chaff, you cannot,
He knows how to move underground.
The sky will collapse on the ground,
The grass will cease to grow —
He will come and silently fix everything,
The man from Kemerovo.

Adam became a refugee,
Abel got caught in a mobile web,
Noah didn't finish what he was building
Got drunk and fell face-first into mud;
The history of humanity
Would not have been as skewed,
Had they had the wisdom to connect
With the man from Kemerovo.

They called me from Kiev,
They called from Kathmandu;
They called from the start of the plenary session —
I told them I will not attend.
It is imperative to drink two liters of water before bed,
So my head remains whole the next day —
Because tonight I'm planning on drinking
With the man from Kemerovo.

Hear cover by yours truly