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LT → English (Jamaican) → Linton Kwesi Johnson → Mi Revalueshanary Fren → English
  • Linton Kwesi Johnson
    Linton Kwesi Johnson – Mi Revalueshanary Fren

    English translation

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English
Translation

My Revolutionary Friend

My revolutionary friend is not the same anymore
You know since when?
 
Since the masses that were silenced
Started to grumble
Since party paramountcy took a tumble
From Hungary to Poland to Romania
Since their cosy castles started to crumble
When we back up one another in reasoning
My friend always ends up on the same thing
This is the song he loves to sing:
 
Kádár1
He had to go
Zhivkov2
He had to go
Husák3
He had to go
Honecker4
He had to go
Ceaușescu5
He had to go
Just like apartheid
Will have to go
 
A while ago my friend and me were talking
So I said to him:
 
The way the earth runs nowadays, man
It's getting harder by the day
To know where you stand
'Cause when you think you step on solid dry land
When you check you find you're in quick-sand
You don't notice how the landscape shifts
It's like there is a volcanoe underneath and nothing can stop it
'Cause things just bubble and boil down below
Strata6 separates and refolds
And when you think you reached the mountain top
It's a brand new plateau and you go back up
 
My revolutionary friend shook his head and sighed
This is what he replied:
 
Kádár
He had to go
Zhivkov
He had to go
Husák
He had to go
Honecker
He had to go
Ceaușescu
He had to go
Just like apartheid
Will have to go
 
Well, I was never satisfied with what my friend replied
And to get a deeper meaning in the reasoning
I said to him:
 
Well, allright
So Gorby7 gave the people glasnost8
And that posed a lot of problems for the stalinists
So Gorby started perestroika9 upon them
Confunding bureaucratic strategems
But we have to face the cold facts;
He also opened up Pandora's box
Yes, people power is just a shower every hour
And everybody claims they're democratic
But some are wolfs and some are sheep
And that is problematic:
Now, things like that, you would call dialectics10?
 
My revolutionary friend paused a while and he smiled
Then he looked me in the eye and replied:
 
Kádár
He had to go
Zhivkov
He had to go
Husák
He had to go
Honecker
He had to go
Ceaușescu
He had to go
Just like apartheid
Will have to go
 
Well, I couldn't elaborate
Plus, it was getting kind of late
So in spite of my lack of understanding
About the meaning of the changes in the East
For the West, nonetheless
And although I have my reservations
About the consequences and implications
Especially for Black Liberation
To bring the reasoning to an conclusion
I had to agree with my friend
Hoping that, when we meet up once again
We could have a fuller conversation
 
So I said to him, you know what?
I said what? I said:
 
Kádár
He had to go
Zhivkov
He had to go
Husák
He had to go
Honecker
He had to go
Ceaușescu
He had to go
Just like apartheid
Soon gone
 
English (Jamaican)
Original lyrics

Mi Revalueshanary Fren

Click to see the original lyrics (English (Jamaican))

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