Caparezza - Jodellavitanonhocapitouncazzo (English translation #2)

Caparezza – Jodellavitanonhocapitouncazzo

English translation

English

Translation

#1#2

Iknowshitboutlife

[yodel] 1

I'm not a showman

I show off, man

Just like my drunk grandpa the day of my first Holy Communion 2

So out of my mind

That some of my relatives are not happy at all to share the same surname

Leave me with my conceit

To feel like manure

Sometimes hard, sometimes sludgy

I'm not fame thirst, I'm literally starving 3

I don't want to sit at the table,4 I've got a bowl like a dog

I bark to beg for some food

I could be always angry, but I forget to

Next to me there's an actual doctor, he says

"Don't you realise you're getting schizophrenic?"

Shut up, doctor

You're expensive

I worth zero

And don't call me artist, call me bullshitter

Understood? I'm a bullshitter, to the root

I'm happy in the faeces, I'm supposed to cry, and yet -

[yodel]

I'm sick, but on one side I don't play victim

I'm a Mirko,5 with all the trimmings

Love me, my knight 6

I aspire an Oscar, but the one for aphorisms

I was supposed to take a shower, but they gave me a frisbee

I smell like shit

I drink without paying the bill

I avoided my destiny like an immigrant on a boat 7

Eyes wide open like an owl

I build brick on brick 8 a future in which I'm an UFO 9

I'll get tired of it, no doubt

I swear on my bush 10

I should be playing the trumpet, I always grumble 11

If I dive in one of my ideas

I find myself freediving in a sea of diarrhoea

I find it silly

I'm alive, but not because I breathe

I only feel alive if I pull out my pen and I write

When I was born I didn't understand

And now that I still don't understand, the only thing I can do is -

[yodel]

I laugh, but I cry out loud 12

When I see a macho man ripped and tanned just right

In my hair I've still got some mud from Woodstock, I stink

I accumulate sweat for hours until I drip

I love women who smell like cod

More than showgirls and ostrich feathers

I roll in a pile of joy

Even if I don't spend my summer nightclubbing on the playa 13

I'm the reigning champion of the sewer

But my cranial lid is hot like lava rock

And in the music cheaters competition

I'm playing with a two of spades up my sleeve 14

The only sure thing is that I'll hit the buffers

Caparezza dies, everybody at his funeral

It's a paradox

But I won't come, I don't care

Man, how many records they'll sell when I die! 15

(Doctor, to the operating room...)

[yodel]

1. the song starts with a yodel solo, and the title is a pun on "jodel" and the sentence "io della vita non ho capito un cazzo" (lit. "I never understood shit about life").
2. the first time someone (typically children) is allowed to receive the Holy Communion is traditionally celebrated by Catholic Italian families, inviting relatives to the Mass and with a rich lunch afterwards.
3. pun on the Italian idiom "morto di fame" (lit. "dead of starvation"), which means "very poor", but also "pathetic". Coincidentally, "fame" (pronounced "fah-meh") means "hunger" in Italian.
4. "un posto a tavola" (lit. "a seat at the table") is an Italian idiom meaning "to become someone, to become important".
5. Mirko is the Italian name of Katō Gō, a charachter of the 1983 anime "Love me, my knight", which became very popular in Italy with the title "Kiss me, Licia". He's the popular singer of a music band, a playboy, until he meets the protagonist (Yakko in Japanese, Licia in Italian), falls in love with her and becomes almost her lapdog, which I suppose is the reason the author compares himself to him.
6. the original lyrics says, in English, "kiss me, Licia", a reference to the anime mentioned in the previous note.
7. a reference to the thousands of immigrants who try to escape war and poverty in Africa and try to reach the Italian shores by boat.
8. the Italian lyrics say, literally, "tuff on tuff".
9. i.e. an outcast.
10. Caparezza has a woolly, almost Afro-like hairstyle which, along with his goatee, is an homage to Frank Zappa.
11. a man who grumbles usually snorts, puffs, which may sound like a man blowing a trumpet (in Italian, a man who grumbles a lot is called a "trombone").
12. the Italian lyrics says "piango di gusto", but "di gusto" is an idiom only used with the verb "ridere" ("to laugh").
13. "playa" means "seaside" in Spanish, a word popularised in Italian by the periodical Latino-American summer hits.
14. the two of spades is commonly useless in most of card games. Additionally, when someone is interested (romantically or sexually) by someone else, but is rejected, in Italian people say "she/he has given you the two of spades".
15. the Italian verb used her for "to die" also mean "to be turned off", like music.