Muchas gracias, Rosa. :)

It’s the most important Spanish translation that I did so far, so of course I would like very much to continue and to make it as good as possible, 'cause I don't intend to make another version. This one is the final one. When I tried to translate this song for the first time my Spanish hardly existed and the fact that I decided to try to do it was a total madness. Nevertheless, I did the right thing, because I was able to learn a lot. Honestly, I wasn’t happy with the result. I did it the same way like I did in case of my first Polish translation - too explanative. That’s why later I made another Polish version. Now it was time for another Spanish interpretation.

It’s a very difficult song to translate, because it’s not easy to understand it and that applies also to the native English speakers.

There was a site with explanations of Marillion songs, but it disappeared too quickly. It helped me to translate only one song - “Fugazi” - and then suddenly it stopped working. It was very good, because they quoted the explanations of the author (Fish) what he meant in his songs.

Only now I found another blog and one of the explanations was interesting. I didn’t pay attention that “Marquee” was capitalized. That’s why: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marquee_Club

At the time when this song was written over the entrance there was a writing “Marquee” made of neon lights. It’s pretty similar to what I wrote in my explanations to my first Polish translation: “looks like the lyrical subject suddenly saw in his imagination a neon light writing SEX”. My (second) translation was (in Polish) “en las luces de promesas vi…”. I wonder whether it wouldn’t be a better choice.

I’ll continue tomorrow and I’ll correct what you suggested.

Okay, Rosa, let’s continue with my most important translation so far. :bigsmile:

Here you can read about the meaning of Cinderella: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinderella

I wrote a very detailed explanation of the meaning of this song when I submitted its first translation. You can find everything there. Now not to repeat what you can read there let me tell you something new that you won’t find anywhere:

This song is about “The unlucky life of Derek Dick alias Fish”, who wrote these lyrics. It’s about his unsuccessful attempts to find the woman of his life, his Cinderella, and about his problems with alcohol. If you read about his life you’ll get it. He always tried to find a wrong woman in a wrong place and it always ended badly. “I always use the cue sheets but never the nets” - in other words: “Live like you’ll never die, love like you’ll never get hurt” and that’s what he kept on doing and when another one left him he drowned his sorrows in alcohol and straight away tried to find another one - always with the same result.

First of all I would like you to treat all that what I wrote as my own poem and not as a translation. Don’t compare it (too much) with the original lyrics, because it was not my goal to keep the words. I concentrated on the meaning and I wanted to express it my way. Important is how it sounds for a native Spanish speaker and whether it makes sense as a whole poem.

There was no way to translate it literally, so the only solution was to interpret most parts.

Indeed I concentrated on some lines and I overlooked things that I shouldn’t have overlooked, like accents or unneeded articles, but some parts that you mentioned I did intentionally this way.

No matter what the original says (“the Samaritan”) I wrote “una samaritana”, meaning not a particular one, but “some Samaritan”, because for me it made more sense in the given context. I’m only not sure whether it should be capitalized (in English it has to), because I noticed it sometimes is, but usually isn’t.

“The model” refers to his dream girl, so it should be “la modelo”.

My translation of “Exposing bedside manners on a work extension..” was an interpretation and I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the best interpretation, so I wrote this part from scratch. Now it should be good. Have a look!

Just one grammatical question: You suggested to write “Tal vez siempre estuviste…” instead of “estabas”. For sure you know it better than I, no doubt about it, but let me tell you that for me it sounds strange, because it was “siempre”, so Imperfecto should be the logical choice. How to deal with it?

Okay, Rosa, let’s continue with this translation, there’s not much left to finish it. Sorry for my late reply. :)

Why is he searching for the Cinderella? There’s no answer in this song, but that’s easy to guess - he meant his dream girl.

All the lyrics written by Fish are ambiguous, he plays with words and everyone can understand them differently or may not understand them at all, even if he’s a native speaker, but that’s normal in case of poetry. It was clearly his intention to leave space for interpretation and I try to use this space.

Samaritans are an ethnoreligious group of the Levant originating from the Israelites (Hebrews) of the Ancient Near East. Important in this song are their religious beliefs and how they treat women. They have their own religious beliefs based on Tora and they discriminate against women. In other words “una samaritana” means a woman who doesn’t expect to have the same rights as a man, she lives only to please him and waits for a Messiah to grant her his salvation. When she meets the lyrical subject she believes it is finally this Saviour she’s been waiting for. Later she realises it wasn’t and leaves him.

The meaning of “Exposing bedside manners on a work extension…” is “behaving like a nurse on a night shift” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bedside_manner

It clearly refers to the “Cinderella”, so now I wrote: “Ella se comporta como una enfermera en turno de noche” - they went to bed and she started "pleasing" him and he waited what would happen next, so: “y yo espero lo que revelará…” - “I’m waiting what will develop - meaning what will happen - (gazing) with my paranoid Polaroid eyes”.

For me “la modelo” sounds fine, because as the lyrical subject for sure liked that “Cinderella” for him she must have looked like a fashion model.

You’re right, Rosa, with “dirección”. How about: “Sólo busco el camino que me pueda llevar a Cenicienta, llevar a Cenicienta”? That’s what I wrote now.

Gracias, Rosa. :) ¿Ahora todo es perfecto o necesito cambiar algo más?

BTW, the explanation what the “Samaritan” means I found in the Polish version of Wikipedia and I translated it. Strangely I wasn’t able to find the same explanation both in English and Spanish version of Wikipedia.

Your explanation also sounds fine, but I prefer what I wrote, because that’s how I understand it in this particular song.

¡Soy yo! ;)

Thanks! I'll be waiting. :)