Fa-Fa-Fa

This gem from АукцЫон showcases both their lyrical and musical creativity; it’s from their 1991 album Бодун (a term that means literally “one who butts / gores (i.e. with horns),” and can by extension mean “a hangover”). This album, along with at their first six or seven albums at least, is fantastic from start to finish. But this song in particular demonstrates their affinity for the kind of trans-sense poetry that Velimir Khlebnikov was known for (see an earlier post on the Auktyon song “Phantoms,” with lyrics by Khlebnikov himself).

The title itself is completely nonsensical (although I’ve always wondered if it was inspired by Talking Heads’ Psycho Killer), and the repetition of this meaningless (?) syllable is vaguely suggestive of madness; indeed, the song seems to announce itself as a hallucination, or as a kind of confession — rife with what Bakhtin would call лазейки (loopholes — in the sense that the speaker retains his right to retract any word he utters, thereby asserting his ultimate “unfinalizability”). For example: “I’m loyal — for now.” In this broad sense, the lyrics call to mind the classics of Russian tragicomic confessional literature, from Dostoevsky’s Notes from the Undergound to Gogol’s Diary of a Madman.

As with so many similarly cryptic songs in Russian rock, it may be useful to classify this one as an “escape” song, one that hearkens back, however loosely, to the escape-from-the-Gulag songs of the блатная песня genre: the speaker is a “fugitive,” seems to have treacherous tendencies, and criminal ambitions (I’m poor, for now; I’d live-and-commit-arson) — and through it all, we see that obsession with meaning, with “essence,” that informs so many Russian rock lyrics. However, although the speaker claims to already be on the run, to be a fugitive, any actual escape still seems a mere possibility, something beyond his reach: “If I were magical… taiga.” He’s only dreaming of escape, of rebellion, of arson and conflagration… of attaining essence. Aha!

In formal terms, a trans-sense flavor is lent even to words that are otherwise intelligible; whether through creating new and bizarre compound words, or by breaking up ordinary words syllable-by-syllable, Auktyon “makes language strange,” or “defamiliarizes” it, as the Russian formalists would say. Look at the foreign borrowing галлюциногены — already quite strange to the Russian ear. But when it follows “fa-fa-fa-fa…,” it is as if we are invited to hear it not as a word, but as a bundle of unintelligible syllables: гал-лю-ци-но-ге-ны. Or take the hyphenated neologism деды-дымоделы: the latter component is based on models like винодел (wine-maker), but here we have a дым-maker, a smoke-maker.

As I’ve noted before, all of this often makes Auktyon’s lyrics very difficult to translate — and in translating them, one is often forced to eliminate the rich ambiguities by choosing among many possible readings.

Fa-Fa-Fa

I’m nervous
I’m loyal, for now
I’m tender.
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa.
Hallucinogens
Of the south…
There are tons of us,
Drunk with essence,
Aha!

I’m a fugitive,
I’m poor, for now
I’m white.
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa.
Grandpas-smoke-producers,
Snows…
Everyone would go on the run,
Drunk with essence.
Aha!

I’m nervous
I’m loyal, for now
I’m harmful.
Fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa.
If only I were magical,
Taiga…
I’d live-and-light-things-on-fire,
Drunk with essence,
Aha!

Фа-фа-фа

Я нервный,
Я верный, пока
Я нежный.
Фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа
Галлюциногены
Юга...
Hас до фига,
Hакатила суть,
Ага!

Я беглый,
Я бедный, пока
Я белый.
Фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа
Деды-дымоделы,
Снега...
Все бы в бега,
Hакатила суть,
Ага!

Я нервный,
Я верный, пока
Я вредный.
Фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа-фа
Был бы я волшебный,
Тайга...
Жил-поджигал,
Hакатила суть,
Ага!