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Spring

Should a new spring come
and the tired ice1 wake from its slumber
with it will ring, like a wind ruffling hair,
restless voices.
 
And when the spring comes to the cities
and wakes the tired ice
with it will ring, like a wind in the sky,
rebellious voices.
 
There, where guilt2 turns into water,
where shadows linger forever,
to hell with fear and apathy!
The creeps3 cross ballot papers,
turning freedom into a yoke
every day of your life4!
 
There, where the voice of independent minds
is branded as a stigmata,
make your own choices!
Wheat grows from mere seeds,
and the scythe will tire of mowing down
our voices
 
And when the new spring comes
and wakes the tired ice
with it will ring, like a wind ruffling hair,
rebellious voices.
 
There where Goebels-TV cooks the bone marrow
of your conformist friends into glue5,
you got to get smarter!
Where the ghostly life of insects
becomes an appealing prospect6,
you got to get stronger!
 
Where evil, soaked in lies and vodka,
breathes like a petty demon
shooting itself in the foot,
there's no point in rocking the boat,
It's too late for that.
The time is up!
 
And when the new spring comes
and wakes the tired ice
with it will ring, like a wind in the sky,
restless voices.
 
Our voices!
 
The sun will rise over the burnt down field,
melting the ice of TV antennas,
and the huge lifeless golem
will rise again from its knees.
When this cold lump of biomass
will be able to think for itself,
it will hear the voices
through ice-caked metastases!7
 
And that's when the new spring will come
and the tired ice wake from its slumber.
With it will ring, like a wind ruffling hair,
restless voices.
 
And then the spring will come into the cities
(A new spring!)
and wake the tired ice,
(A new spring!)
With it will ring, like a wind in the sky
(Our voices!)
rebellious voices!
(Our voices!)
 
  • 1. the "tired ice" is a poetic image for spring's thawing ice, that can be found in 19th century poems
  • 2. вино(wine) and вина(guilt/fault) are very similar, so that sounds close to "wine turns into water"
  • 3. lit. "worms", meant as "subservient people"
  • 4. assuming "твой каждый день". The current transcription means "remember that every day" but sounds a bit fishy
  • 5. that's a rather direct allusion to concentration camps. Well, political correctness is not Pornofilmi's middle name...
  • 6. lit "closer and warmer"
  • 7. that's certainly an original metaphor :D
Original lyrics

Весна

Click to see the original lyrics (Russian)

Comments
Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:00

Я тут. Сейчас работу разгребу немножко и почитаю перевод.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 05:47

Послушал песенку.
"Время и стекло" - возможно вот эти ребята https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Время_и_Стекло (в смысле попса) возможно смысл - прямой (there's no time left whether you rock your boat either right or left)
Где залитая ложью и водкой, ->Где, залитое ложью и водкой,
Then I'll check up the rest of it.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 06:10

время истекло seems to be not a pun here. But who knows, You'd never get exactly the same meaning in your translation, you can only footnote it.
Залитое ложью и водкой -> зло :)

IgeethecatIgeethecat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 08:00

I believe it is "время истекло " meaning "time is down", 'it is too late'

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:21

Я тоже заметила. Сейчас исправлю на "залитое"

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 06:08

И когда придет новая весна,
И усталый лед пробудит от сна,
Будут с ней звенеть ветром в волосах
Неспокойные голоса

The general sense is that when a new spring comes it will wake up the tired ice and mutinous voices will start to sing like wind in hair. "Голос звенит" means that it is heard distinctly resounding the nearby area. This metaphor is a kinda lame, I'd say, as for me... Or the howling of wind in the ears was meant. There may be a kind of metonymy that is hard to interprete, introduced for the sake of the rhyme "голоса - в волосах". I'd say that 'voices singing in the ears like wind' would be a decent rendition.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 06:38

That may be a sense of something higher above...

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 06:42

Where the ghostly life of insects
becomes an appealing prospect

You've got it well, BTW... :) The sense is exactly what you wrote. I'd like to add that it may also mean that such a life becomes more understandable and likeable for them.

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:01

It's useless to rock the boat, you only wasting time. Where did you get the glass from? Also, "неспокойные и непокорные" it's not the same.

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:10

The time is up . It's too late to rock the boat. The time has expired for that action.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 08:34

Всем врагам назло- а что именно тебе непонятно?
"Всем врагам/чертям/смертям назло" - это раcхожее выражание, означающее "несмотря ни на что"

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:25

You are right, this is an idiom. I've just added and its English equivalent to the site idiom database, so you may insert a link to it in the lyrics using 'idiom' tags.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:45

Вообще-то это немного разные идиомы...

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:48

Поясните пожалуйста)

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 12:08

Смысл "несмотря ни на что" появляется в идиоме только при наличии слова "всем".

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 12:10

А понятно.
Ну конечно :-)

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 08:06

Костный мозг - Bone marrow.
Как по мне, это фрагмент означает, что телеГеббельс изничтожил знакомых и пустил их тела в дело, как это было в концлагерях. (мыло из людей, перчатки из человеческой кожи и т.п.)

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:32

Я думаю, что "Черви крестят бюллетень" - значит ставят крестик в графе за нужного кандидата. (таким образом лишая нас выбора, "дерьмом подменяя свободу")

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 08:50

Мммм... В России, конечно,все возможно.
Но скорее, черви здесь просто как ругательное слово. Не знаю.
Посмотрим, что скажут другие участники обсуждения.

Кстати, интересно, куда делся [@Alexander Laskavtsev]

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 08:50

значит, годится

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:27

I don't think it's about dead voting... It's rather a metaphor of people crawling naked on the broken glass...

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:38

On the subservient people resembling worms? I'm neither a psychologist, nor a sociologist...

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:59

Well, did it make your flesh crawl? It should have done... The original string is alike more or less disgusting in Russian, that's all I meant... :)

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:43

АААА... Что Вы такое говорите!
Голыми по битому стеклу... Мне же теперь кошмары будут сниться вместо эротических снов...

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:50

Это к эротике никакого отношения не имеет, а выражает крайнюю степень пресмыкательства...

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 12:01

Я не говорила, что черви имеют отношение к эротике :-) Я имела в виду, что обычно по ночам я наслаждаюсь эротическими снами , а теперь буду мучиться кошмарами!

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 12:11

Не дай бог кто из кандидатов приснится... Тьфу три раза через плечо. Не читайте советских газет, читайте хорошую художественную литературу - и всё нормально будет...

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 07:37

"мелким бесом" это фразеологизм, грмматически выступает как наречие.
Дышит (как?) мелким бесом - услужливо, стараясь угодить. Чем мельче бес, тем ниже его ступень в иерархии, тем он более выслуживается перед своим "начальством".

У меня такое понимание. Может быть, авторы имели в виду другое.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:34

Literally it will be "as a negligible demon", so it goes.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 11:42

Your variant goes well, as I said. :)

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:27

Ah, I found an irreptitious typo:
melting the ice off TV antennas,->melting the ice of TV antennas,

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:43

Oh, I see you didn't understand the general meaning: "лёд телеантенн" means that these aerials are made of ice. ;)
The spring is to destroy them all totally, not only to melt off the ice. :)

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:45

Ребята, я четко слышу в третьем куплете "где вина превращается в воду"

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:53

That's it.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:55

Да. И я также заменила "И ярмом заменяя свободу". На медленной скорости это хорошо слышно.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:00

Да уж... Вместо свободы - дерьмо, а вместо дерьма - ярмо... :(

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:51

Так вроде бы и черви крестят бюллетень "воя каждый день"... ;) Это ж панк-саунд...

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 14:59

"Воя" не слышу. Слышу "Помни"
Дома с нормальным слухом послушаю, на работе немного шумно.

Кстати "Черви крестят" - это не о картах метафора?

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:01

"Ни крестов, ни сердец - всё злодейская масть". Возможно.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:04

"убивать-хоронить-горевать-забывать"

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:59

That's it. There's probably a pun on card suits meaning Hearts (черви) and Crosses (крести). And we've talked about this song using the same metaphor with Green_Sattva.

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:04
Green_Sattva написал(а):

"Воя" не слышу. Слышу "Помни"
Дома с нормальным слухом послушаю, на работе немного шумно.

Это надо с фильтрами слушать. Я попробую.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 15:05

Спасибо. А с фильтрами - это как? я в этом не разбираюсь

BratBrat    Sat, 20/01/2018 - 16:03

А с фильтрами - это в простейшем случае поиграть с полосовым эквалайзером. Человеческий голос занимает диапазон от 300 до 5000 Гц, остальное можно приглушить для наилучшей разборчивости. Правда, могут возникнуть проблемы с шипящими и свистящими, но обычно это не сильно мешает. Правда у панков много инструментов шпарящих именно в этом диапазоне. Но это у них так и должно быть, так и задумано.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sat, 20/01/2018 - 16:07

Вечером к мужу попристаю с этим вопросом.

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 02:26

Черви весят бюллетень. Нет здесь никакого крещения и "Ballot papers". Where the guilt turns into water.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sun, 21/01/2018 - 09:17

Нет там никаких "весят". В русском языке нет такого слова.

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 09:40

When I settle my jobs I'll surely enlighten you. Now I still think крестят is the only thing to be there. But I'm not so sure about Помни каждый день, Где клеймом обличают :(

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 09:37

Есть такое слово. Черти весят всего ничего - бюллетень. Но это же хренотень. ;)

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sun, 21/01/2018 - 09:56

А. ну если в этом смысле, то да.
А так, вешать либо повесить

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:02

Бюллетень не крестят а он вроде всегда весит на стене. Может хватит искать сужденья из забытых газет. И почему бы чертям не повесить его, у них ведь тоже безработица.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:05

Бюллетень выглядит  вот так
В нем ставят галочку ( крестик, квадратик, х*й - короче, любой значок) и опускают в урну для голосования.

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:17

Not always. It also could have many other meanings. Bulletin definition, a brief account or statement, as of news or events, issued for the information of the public. Most of the time by authorities. You do have a lot of those( чертей) , who pretend to be the authority.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:17

да, есть и другие значения, то по-моему, из контекста понятно, что речь идет о бюллетене для голосования. "Где ярмом подменяя свободу" и "черви крестят бюллетень" - это именно о выборах

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:31

Maybe you're right, after all you are living there and I'm too far removed. By the way, I do love this song. It's very powerful and right to the point.
I do get the meaning, at last. The worms( authorities) marking crosses on ballot papers and no matter how you vote, the result will be the same.

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 16:20

Oh, "worm" is a pretty ancient Russian poetic metaphor:

Я связь миров, повсюду сущих,
Я крайня степень вещества;
Я средоточие живущих,
Черта начальна божества;
Я телом в прахе истлеваю,
Умом громам повелеваю,
Я царь — я раб — я червь — я бог!

(C) Г. Р. Державин. Бог
rvb.ru/18vek/derzhavin/01text/021.htm

Hence the meaning of the song's lines about worms crossing the voting papers is the following:
Subservient people (worms) are crossing (putting a cross sign there) the voting papers and before this it is said that they do it substituting their liberty with a yoke (a metaphor for captivity). Also that "crossing" brings here a kind of religious/superstitious sense (as if they wished the things wouldn't turn worse that would probably happen, in their narrow-minded opinion, if they voted in a 'wrong' way).
That's my humbliest opinion, though...

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 16:52

Well, I'm gonna download and dissect that crappy piece of ... vid... ;)
Of course I'll give my comments then....

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 17:00

A-ha, it seems that my provider blocks https secure connections... :( What a bastardous behaviour! :D

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 17:21

OK, I'm now ripping the soundtracks through saveitoffline.com thanks God it works without https but too slowly ;(
I'm waiting for 5,5 MiBs to load for already 5 mins. Dang! It's even disconnecting every minute... ;(

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 17:57

That mucking alternative live video hasn't completely loaded yet ;( , but I've got one interesting result: there's "клеймом отмечается" instead of "клеймом обличается". That is much more like the true Russian. ;)

Treugol'nyTreugol'ny    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 12:43

It's only my sick imagination. I'm going to bed now. It's late and back to hard labour tomorrow. I'll leave it to you guys to go through this song with a fine comb.
Good night.

Ivan U7nIvan U7n    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 17:44

Wow guys, you seems to have already dissected this song into atoms. The only thing that I've noticed in Pierre's work is future tense in conditionals. ;) As it seems the lyrics are being re-fused from the sound-bytes by Brat, I'll leave it to him and will return to it when he's done. If I won't forget it all till then, that's it. :D

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:02

I'd translate it 'When a new spring would come' as I feel it so. But there are less hues for conditionals in Russian, so it's up to the translator...

BratBrat    Mon, 22/01/2018 - 06:20
petit élève написал(а):

"would come" would rather express a repetitive action in the past : "every morning he would have breakfast and set off to work..."

A pair of "would-would" will certainly produce this effect. (When he would come home, he would take off his boots at the entrance). And it could also add some uncertainty when used in a certain context concerning the present. (That's like boots pounding! Is that Peter? - Oh, when he would come home, he would take off his boots at the entrance.) That means the speaker is not certain whether it's Peter or not; and if it is him, something might have happened that made him hurry, because he used to take off his boots at the entrance, normally...
This is how we compress meanings in English, because 'would', being itself the emanation of 'will' into the past, still bears a print of future on it. And again we should remember the beginning of Eliot's "Burnt Norton":
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.

And what about a pair of "would-will""?

When a new spring would come Обычно, когда приходит новая весна,
It would wake up the tired ice. Она пробуждает усталый лёд.
And the _____________ voices will sing И____________голоса будут слышны
Like wind playing hair around the ears Подобно ветру, играющему в волосах

It will be a view taken from another viewpoint but still not the very perfect translation, because Russian has its own rules of meaning compression that are not fully adaptable to the other languages... We'll surely lose something trying to preserve this or that aspect. But at the same time this opens a way to the variety of other possible translations. ;)

In addition, while you're analyzing a piece of poetry, you should always bear in mind that the author had quite a lot of options when he composed this or that line.
Look, there's "И когда придет НОВАЯ весна"
"И" and "НОВАЯ" tell us that it's not the first time for spring to come, but that should be a 'new' one coming.
At the same time "И" shows us a kind of uncertainty, making us rely upon the prior experience. Otherwise it might have been smth. like "А когда", "Но когда", "В час, когда" and so on. Also note that "голоса БУДУТ (с ней) ЗВЕНЕТЬ" and not "ЗАЗВЕНЯТ" that removes the sense of immediate following that otherwise should have been translated as "voices will start singing" .
Nevertheless I like the current rendition as it dashes a kind of promising hue...

BTW, having listened to the audio track of the main video carefully I'm about to make some corrections to the lyrics:
First of all it should be "Твой каждый день" after "Черви крестят бюллетень" sung as "Тво-и каждый день". That's good to find out because the current expression makes little sense, if any. And it should be "Где клеймо обличает за голос" instead of the passive voice: "Где клеймом обличается голос". It sounds better but I still prefer the variant from the other video - "Где клеймом отмечают за голос", that could be footnoted as a variant. And if we found another video it would probably yield another variant... :D

Ну вот, вроде бы песню препарировали, теперь можно хоронить... *devil_smile*

GavinGavin
   Mon, 22/01/2018 - 15:20

Hello there :)

I would say you are all thinking a bit to hard about this. English tend to be a bit more straightforward on this sort of thing, we don't do all that agreement of tenses and prefer to just use the simple present. So the most natural way for the first verse to read would be just:

When a new spring comes
and the tired ice wakes from its slumber
with it will ring, like a wind ruffling hair,
restless voices.

However - if you really did want to underline the uncertainty then a rather elegant way would be to use 'should'

Should a new spring come (or: If a new spring should come)
and the tired ice wake from its slumber
with it will ring, like a wind ruffling hair,
restless voices.

(Note: come, wake (not comes, wakes) following 'should' )

BratBrat    Mon, 22/01/2018 - 16:04

That might have been a good idea to use that unusual 'shall'...*thumbs_up* But Gavin's 'should' should do the job better.
As for "Твой каждый день" - it comes after "бюллетень" and may refer to it. There's an ambiguity of the kind... :(
There is a possible way to say merely 'Every day' to help keep it unriddled...

petit élève написал(а):

Где клеймом отмечают за голос / Где клеймом обличается голос -> this reflexive+passive construct seems to be rather common in Russian, like "весной, воздух легко дышается / легко дышать воздух весной". Since a similar construct would sound artificial in English

In English it would be "In spring, the air is easily breatht/It is easy to breathe with air in spring" (It reads as funny in English as your phrase does in Russian) But it does not matter at all. You can use either the passive or active voice, the only difference could be present in the verbs "отмечают" (to mark) and "обличает" (to unmask) but I suppose there's no need to use any of them since we have a pretty good verb 'to execrate'. It fits the meaning perfectly. :) -> They execrate the freedom of those wanting to have a mind of their own... :)

Ivan U7nIvan U7n    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:03

It sounds to me natural:
When a new spring comes
and the tired ice wakes them up,
they will ring with the spring like a wind ruffling hair,
the restless voices.
However the source is rather strange, thus the translation is ought to be too. ;)

Ivan U7nIvan U7n    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:15

Well, if they (the group I mean) have a say, it will sound like it all happens every cycle, every election cycle that is. :)

Ivan U7nIvan U7n    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:18

What about
When a new spring is to come
and the tired ice is to wake them up,
...
then?

Ivan U7nIvan U7n    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:38

Mine too, I'm afraid. It seems according to the English grammar if the action is single or repeatable is dependent on the context.
Even the future in the conditional doesn't help, the only thing I can think of is to use present perfect in it:
When a new spring has come
and the tired ice has woken them up,
then the future in the main part will make it all in the future, or so I hope. ;)

BratBrat    Sun, 21/01/2018 - 18:45

That's what I call 'dangling conditionals', though there's no term for this in English Grammar. But there's a pretty lot of conditional combinations that are still out of the majority of Grammar Guides. The only thing I should say here is that when you say 'when a new spring comes and smth. happens' that means it is very probable to happen, and the enumerated events will surely happen simultaneously. But since there's still a slip between the cup and the lip (and it's permanently present in Russia) some other expressions are to be used there... Pierre used a kind of mixed tense to introduce some feeling of a 'non-100% probability'.

Sophia_Sophia_
   Sun, 21/01/2018 - 19:06

Oh, my God!
108 comments!