[lbo-talk] For Joanna (I translate Russian hip-hop)

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Mon Dec 7 05:18:57 PST 2009


I finally got around, as per Joanna's request, to translating the Russian hip-hop song she posted a link to the video of last week. So here it is, Kosmpoliten by MC Deathender. I wasn't sure about a few little bits, which I have marked. It's kind of... rambling, being hip-hop.

  COSMOPOLITAN

The cosmopolitan pressed into iron concrete Along the cement walls stands a spiritual groan A metropolis stands like no other 365 days past every year

Through prosthetic feelings there's a cheap easy path there In the center of the city mercury flows in the veins Rivers of people hurrying deep within through streams of yellow-red fire It carries the eclipse of past days toward you

Trying to show the essence of life with speech Losing speech, losing connection with the world there Beating the emptiness with a heavy fate (rock music?) killing the soul with a current They lie shoulder to shoulder to each other

Where the stream flows carries a shot into death And he, thinking up an approach, grabs her by the arm He (she?) was dependent here, before the flight into peace

Where did he go? He doesn't have a chance He won't save the world with kindness and caresses Size and quantity and determine happiness His strange words outside of power

In vanity thinking, or without a goal in him (it?) Each day – whether sun or rain In the darkness of (those who have found or those who have forced?) not awaking into sleep Everyone in it is asleep or dead

Water flows through the dark streets of the real world The rain washes away the filth with strengthens The city again doesn't know the troubles of the world Everything through pain, so dismal and beautiful

Armadas, mountain ranges, with uninterrupted sieges Here is he always dressed and clothed; why? He speaks words that have no meaning here She lets go, not understanding, after.

They stand in the smog the paranoia of departing years takes them to the sky They are blind, but know there are many stars somewhere out there And, like always, she drinks coffee on the way A taxi takes her to work, poisoning nature She doesn't want, doesn't even believe the empty word

Running away into the darkness of night, she wants freedom The normal plot in her life is over She reaches out to the hands of friends in a night club.

In vanity thinking, or without a goal in him (it?) Each day – whether sun or rain In the darkness of (those who have found or those who have forced?) not awaking into sleep Everyone in it is asleep or dead

Running away into the darkness of night, she wants freedom Why does he hold his arms out to her now? She pretends that she doesn't know separation

Maybe there's something in this; a cold tomorrow Through the pupils of cold eyes words are waiting They left them in a clear blue sky They forgot time – let time spread out

Covering up faces, leafing through the main pages Does everything rush to there? How many empty ambitions This time the course of the planets won't be stopped They take off their masks, knowing that breathing each other is death

Again on the edge (region?), shining in a crowd of people Going below on a road of closed doors The noise of the city isn't strong enough to knock you from the path You are neutrally unhappy, forgotten from within.



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