He Saw the Sun
The Siberian group Гражданская оборона was led by Егор Летов, and was considerably more aggressive than many of the other "classic" rock bands we'll hear from, playing abrasive punk rock with an anarchist bent. Letov's lyrics can be repulsive or even shockingly violent, but are fully adequate to the themes that most concern him - political violence, for example. Letov himself was forcibly institutionalized as a young man and pumped with debilitating drugs - an experience he compared to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. We'll read more about his experiences later, when our Russian improves. Letov was also a cat person.
Letov was a master of appropriating Soviet symbols and rhetoric and turning them on their head. For example, when he sings of "a long and happy life" or "everything's going according to plan," he does so with bitter irony. Today's song is an impressionistic description of a shattered prison landscape, and is suggestive of an escape, or attempted escape, from a Gulag of some sort — an extremely common theme, whether literal or figurative, in Russian rock music. Of course, the theme of escape isn't exactly alien to Western rock music, come to think of it, but for many Soviet musicians, particularly someone with Letov's experiences, escaping from a prison-like existence may be understood more literally. And, as we'll see later, Russian rock was also influenced to a degree by songs from the Gulag — invariably, songs of being sent to the prison camp, or escaping from it. The word Gulag comes from the Russian ГУЛаг, yet another Soviet acronym, for Главное управление лагерей ("Main Administration of Camps"), the body that managed the vast network of Soviet labor camps in which millions were imprisoned.
By the way, if we create a nice Soviet-style acronym for the name of this band, we get ГрОб, which happens to be a Russian noun: гроб means "grave" or "coffin." And this is how fans of "Civil Defense" usually refer to the band.
The lyrics here consist mostly of noun/adjective pairs. Look them over and notice the agreement. You'll notice that some endings are unfamiliar — they're plurals! Most plural nouns in Russian end in -ы (or -и for soft nouns), while plural adjectives end mostly in -ые. Note that while we may see plurals occasionally (in poster slogans, for example), we won't be actively learning any plural forms until Book 2, in order to simplify the process of learning case endings.
He Saw the Sun
Deferred shock,
ditches full of water,
Concrete walls,
damp earth
Iron windows,
electric light,
A moldy sound,
cracked asphalt.
And the world was wondrous
like snot on a wall,
And the city was nice
like a cross on one's back,
And the day was happy
like a blind intestine,
And he saw the sun.
Plastic smoke,
a scorched stench,
Barbed wire
kilometering (!) into the distance,
Bits of rubber,
wheels and cinders,
Blind trenches,
dry grass.
And the world was wondrous
like snot on a wall,
And the city was nice
like a cross on one's back,
And the day was happy
like a blind intestine (the “caecum”),
And he saw the sun.
Watchtowers,
shards of glass,
Rows of bricks,
the crematorium is smoking,
Empty cans,
shreds of paper,
A machine gun, a uniform,
and a gas mask.
And the world was wondrous
like snot on a wall,
And the city was nice
like a cross on one's back,
And the day was happy
like a blind intestine,
And he saw the sun.
Он увидел солнце
Замедленный шок,
канавы с водой
Бетонные стены,
сырая земля
Железные окна,
электрический свет
Заплесневший звук,
раскалëнный асфальт
А мир был чудесный
как сопля на стене
А город был хороший
словно крест на спине
А день был счастливый
как слепая кишка
А он увидел солнце.
Пластмассовый дым,
горелая вонь
Колючая проволока
в даль километрит
Обрезки резины
колёса и шлак
Слепые траншеи,
сухая трава
А мир был чудесный
как сопля на стене
А город был хороший
словно крест на спине
А день был счастливый
как слепая кишка
А он увидел солнце.
Дозорные вышки
осколки стекла
Кирпичные шеренги
крематорий дымится
Консервные банки
обрывки бумаг
Автомат, униформа
и противогаз
А мир был чудесный
как сопля на стене
А город был хороший
словно крест на спине
А день был счастливый
как слепая кишка
А он увидел солнце.
