Blinding flashes of obviousness
The song went out in 1992. The "Mistress" is USSR itself, Grebenshikov is bidding her farewell.
It evokes aspects of USSR society (emptiness, frozen thoughts, people afraid to speak, militarism) then questions the harsh living conditions and empty lies that were built upon a beautiful ideal.
The song is about the last use of capital punishment in Spain against five revolutionaries.
Luis Eduardo Aute wrote the song from the point of view of the condemned, but he disguised it as a love song (to overcome the censorship). And yet the chorus says "I feel that after the night, will come the longest night. I don't want you to leave me, my love, at dawn."
Suggested by [@Diazepan Medina]
On 21st August, 1968 Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia on a request from the Czechoslovakian Communist party. Thus began for the country forty years of political segregation from the west. Karel Kryl composed Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka, as a direct reaction to the events of August ‘68, and it was published in 1969. The heavily symbolic lyrics sum up the fear, uncertainty and discontent that took hold of the nation, and are by themselves a protest against the enforcers of the regime.
Suggested by [@Imvisible]
On the face of it, it looks like a song about country sights, landscapes painted in watercolours until you understand that blue and green is blue-green or bottle green. Then thу lyrics become meaningful. The singer admits to alcoholism as all his life and concert tours are coloured blue-green with blue depression, green hangover and red anger or stop signals.
Suggested by [@Sandring]
The song and dance come from one of the most popular Bollywood films "Bajirao Mastani" about the legendary Marathi warrior Badji Rao and his love story. He had a faithful wife and a lover, a girl who was his war trophy. Both women had to share Badji Rao's love for many years. The song is their dance competition and "exchange of fire" so to say.
suggested by [@sandring]
The song refers to cold war tensions in the early 80's, when USA and USSR were deploying Pershing and SS-20 missiles in Europe.
We're only watching the skies
Hoping for the best
But expecting the worst
Are you going to drop the bomb or not?
Though the song became famous enough for most people to know it's about child abuse, the lyrics are very allusive.
Suggested by [@MagicMulder]
The song refers to French writer Henry de Monfreid and his "Secrets of the Red Sea" novel
Funky Russia having got rid of its brow-[t]rimming shawl together with fields and forests and lazing on a beach in search for one another sorcerer (or so told me comrade [@Brat])
I think this one also fits the bill well.
https://lyricstranslate.com/cs/karel-kryl-bratříčku-zavírej-vrátka-lyric...
The topic: Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czechoslovakia
On 21st August, 1968 Warsaw Pact troops invaded Czechoslovakia on a request from the Czechoslovakian Communist party. Thus began for the country fourty years of political segregation from the west. Karel Kryl composed Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka, as a direct reaction to the events of August ‘68, and it was published in 1969. The heavily symbolic lyrics sum up the fear, uncertainty and discontent that took hold of the nation, and are by themselves a protest against the enforcers of the regime.
On the face of it, it looks like a song about country sights, landscapes painted in watercolours until you understand that blue and green is blue-green or bottle green. Then thу lyrics become meaningful. The singer admits to alcoholism as all his life and concert tours are coloured blue-green with blue depression, green hangover and red anger or stop signals.
Ah, forever ruined my fav song. Haven't listened to it since my rose colored glasses were shattered.
I'm all as the video I linked...pretty darling blue and green. Wasn't even able to rework my translation.
What's the fudge? This song is not about alcoholism. It's about memories (at large)... Though these memories include drinking "ветерок отравленный" and so like.
Pierre, if you want to include some DDT in the list you'd better take this song -> https://lyricstranslate.com/en/ddt-bolshaya-zhenschina-%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%B...
It's about Russia and it will fit your collection perfectly. ;)
Now it has a translation -> https://lyricstranslate.com/en/%D0%B1%D0%BE%D0%BB%D1%8C%D1%88%D0%B0%D1%8...
If you still need a clue, let me know, though I think there are no prizes left for guessing, after all...
Well, I'm afraid my comment won't fit the style of your collection, you may write it yourself including there some thoughts of "funky Russia having got rid of its brow-[t]rimming shawl together with fields and forests and lazing on a beach in search for one another sorcerer". ;)
No, Pierre, I don't. There's nothing cryptic about this white river. They explicitly speak of drinking. But this one puzzled the world's minds for a long time. https://lyricstranslate.com/en/pinga-%E0%A4%AA%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%82%E0%A4%9...
The song and dance come from one of the most popular Bollywood films "Bajirao Mastani" about the legendary Marathi warrior Badji Rao and his love story. He had a faithful wife and a lover, a girl who was his war trophy. Both women had to share Badji Rao's love for many years. The song is their dance competition and "exchange of fire" so to say.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/l%C3%A9o-ferr%C3%A9-la-m%C3%A9moire-et-la...
The song is based on numerous ballads about Captain Kidd, a fearless sailor and pirate. He's pining for the sea and his burnt down ship in a prison cell before his execution.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/johnny-cash-ghost-riders-sky-lyrics.html - The four Horsemen of Apocalypsis
Both referring to specific historic etc. contexts and only including common knowledge can contradict each other - e.g. that second example on Sophie Scholl, I wouldn't call that common knowledge.
And I don't really know what you mean by subtle.
Well, therefore I'm not sure it fits, but: https://lyricstranslate.com/en/nightbringer-rite-slaying-tongue-lyrics.html
It's about the Aghoris and their historic predecessors, the Kapalikas, both adherents of form of Shivaite Hinduism known for disregarding rules of ritual purity and for practices like smearing themselves with the ash of cremated corpses.
If you know about them it's really obvious - if not, then you won't understand a thing.
There are parts of the lyrics I still don't understand, though.
The band has many other songs that would probably fit the collection - but I don't have the "key" to many such.
While I had heard the name of Sophie Scholl before, I knew hardly more about her than that she was a victim of the Nazi regime.
And I grew up in Germany, where we normally rather learn too much than too little about that part of history.
I wasn't assuming that from that short description one could understand it fully - but I read a book about the Kapalikas and similar a while ago, and anyone reading the notes on my translation (which I intend to ultimately also translate into English and add to the lyrics, at least parts of the comments), i.e. anyone having the same background information I have should be able to make sense of the text.
Some words (devil, and probably husks and serpent iris) mix in a bit of the band's own spiritual focus with that of the Kapalikas etc. - but the rest is quite specifically about those forms of Hinduism. At least that's my assumption - as I said, there are parts left that I'm not sure I understand fully and that may rather refer to the lyricist's personal spiritual practices than to any historic ones.
Well, suffice to say that the Kapalikas (and to a lesser degree the Aghoris) have/had a reputation in India similar to that of Satanists in the West, and the similarities are close enough that it's not easy to determine which is supposed to be about which in these lyrics.
I assumed that this was the idea behind "common knowledge" - it just was written in a slightly self-contradictory manner, if taken literally.
Okay, I'll see whether I can provide a more extensive but still compact comment to go with it (and I'll certainly translate my footnotes on it into English).
Let's see when I get around to take care of that...
Strange Fruit ? (is it cryptic enough ?)
I probably know a few but I can't think of any right now.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/melnitsa-golubaya-trava-%D0%B3%D0%BE%D0%B...
The song was inspired by a Breton fairy-tale "The Raven King" about a young queen who had to find invincible singing grass of light sky-blue colour and cut it with a gold scythe to free her husband and kids from the spell of a mighty sorcerer.
Quite interesting. The tale is also said as originated from Gascogne (South-West of France), but anyway it belongs to the AT425 type (The Search for the Lost Husband). There are many, many variants of it, one of the oldest known being the tale of Psyche and Cupido (Apuleius, 2nd century AD).
Well, you are the landlord here, so yo decide... It's true, the song refers, not to a real situation, but to a tale, a legend... By the way, I found the original tale (in French) online. But the Russians have similar tales, for example in Maria Morevna, three sisters marry three birds, a falcon, an eagle and a raven. Other motives can be found in other tales too, for ex. "the washerwomen" is a common one. I was always fascinated by the analogies between Western France tales (especially the ones from Brittany) and Russian tales. But I can't remember having read anything about any "blue grass" in Russian tales, perhaps Bladé simply invented it to make the story prettier (it was proved after his death that his "collecting" did not always meet the scientific methods of later folklorists, and he sometimes embroidered a little). There are also links with Straparola's tales (it was one of the first collections of folktales in Europe), etc.
Here you can find a part of Aarne-Thompson classification of the Type-Tales (it's incomplete, of course). There is also a Motif-Index, elaborated by Stith Thompson, which is still much more detailed.
Anyway, the Animal Bridegroom is there, like in "La Belle et la Bête". There are parallel tales with an Animal Bride, a frog for instance (see Царевна-лягушка ). You should never throw your wife's frog skin into the fire...
That's not a folk song. It was written by the lead singer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sqNfrohfFc&t=0s&list=PLYwnr-DAdYxGTw3me...
There's also our friend the The White Rabbit, alluding to a literary story... with some extras.
https://lyricstranslate.com/es/los-twist-pens%C3%A9-que-se-trataba-de-ci...
It's about kidnappings and dissapearings during the Argentina's militar dictatorship
The only thing that comes to mind (and, coincidentally, I just quoted to a colleague with regard to an incident here at work where I literally ran into a door) is https://lyricstranslate.com/en/Suzanne-Vega-Luka-lyrics.html - or is the child abuse all too obvious?
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/dandy-warhols-orange-lyrics.html
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The TDW gem about cocaine.
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/Nino-Bravo-Libre-lyrics.html
This song is about Peter Fechter
I'm not sure about this one but it's called White Rabbit by Egypt Central
Imagine by John Lennon
But the feel-good sentiments behind the song Jimmy Carter once said was "used almost equally with national anthems" have some serious Communist underpinnings.
Lennon called the song "virtually the Communist manifesto," and once the song became a hit, went on record saying, "Because it's sugarcoated it's accepted. Now I understand what you have to do—put your message across with a little honey."
Good Riddance (Time of your life) by Green Day
SO many people use this song for graduations so in a way it has a funny double meaning. The graduates are going to have the time of their lives after they graduate while the teachers are saying to the kids "good riddance!" 😂
https://lyricstranslate.com/en/hotel-california-hotel-california.html-23
This song famous all over the world, under these tunes of romance in a bohemian chic hotel in California, actually hides a parable about an alcoholic drug addict who arrives in rehab at a specialized institution in the late 1970s, after the hangover of the hippie years and the painful awakening of the "American Way of Dream", its excesses and its disillusions.
It could be a kind of after "Las Vegas Parano", the convalescence ...
The whole song is a two-way street. It is sadly ironic.
I posted explanations on the song in comment below French translation, but it's in French, Google (translate) is your friend. :)
I'll start with this one
https://lyricstranslate.com/es/luis-eduardo-aute-al-alba-lyrics.html
The topic: The last use of capital punishment in Spain against five revolutionaries
There's a whole wikipedia article here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_use_of_capital_punishment_in_Spain
Luis Eduardo Aute wrote the song from the point of view of the condemned, but he disguised it as a love song (to overcome the censorship). And yet the chorus says "I feel that after the night, will come the longest night. I don't want you to leave me, my love, at dawn."