Summer Will End
Today’s song is the first track from KINO’s final album, released following the tragic death of Viktor Tsoi, who, fortunately, had already recorded the vocal tracks at the time of his accident. This classic album was entitled The Black Album (Чёрный альбом) in honor of Tsoi; its minimalist album cover is shown above. The lyrics are quite typical of Tsoi, with its depiction of the seemingly inescapable banalities of everyday life, and its sense of fatalism mixed with a gnawing hope that change might come. Will the vicious circle described here ever be broken? The sense of a flawed or fallen natural order or logic of things is summed up in the “Murphy’s Law” that you’ll always drop your bread butter-side-down. We know that every day is the same — and yet the notion that tomorrow may be different keeps us going. As the saying goes, “Hope dies last!” (Надежда умирает последней).
(NOTE: As I like to tell students, during a gig as a middle school teacher I formulated my own version of that proverb: “Hope dies last, but dignity dies first.” May you never live to understand the true wisdom of this my proverb, dear reader!)
Let’s take this opportunity to highlight some conjugated verb forms. Even if you’re just beginning with Russian verbs, you can look them over and identify the endings and how they agree with the verbs' subjects. Note that the English translations may appear in the simple present ("I write") or in the present progressive ("I'm waiting"), depending on the context — but in Russian the present tense is simply a single word, with no helping verbs. In short, there is only one present tense in Russian. As we'll soon learn, there's also only one past tense, and only one future tense as well — giving us just three Russian verb tenses in total.
In fact, the song also contains a lot of past-tense verbs, which we can usually spot very easily in Russian: look for the -л: запил, звонил, послал, спал, etc.
The final line of the song contains a subjectless verb — a very difficult topic for students, since English has nothing of the sort. There are two things to remember for any subjectless construction: 1) there is NO SUBJECT! (in Russian, that means NO NOUN, or pronoun, IN THE NOMINATIVE CASE!); 2) any verb used in the construction can only appear in the neuter singular form (that is, as if its subject were оно — although, again, there is no subject, and so we never write оно!).
The subjectless expression here involves the verb везти З / повезти З. It typically describes conveyance by vehicle. But, used subjectlessly with the DATIVE, it means “to be lucky.” Literally, we could imagine “being lucky” as having things “go as if on wheels for one!” Examples: Ему везёт (He is lucky). Ему везло (He was lucky, imperfective). Ему повезло (He got lucky, perfective). Ему повезёт (He’ll get lucky, also perfective). Since this is such a common and useful subjectless construction, it’s a good one to remember and use as a model when encountering other subjectless verbs.
Summer Will End
I turn off the television,
I write you a letter,
About the fact that I can't
Watch this crap anymore.
About how I'm worn out,
About how I almost started drinking,
But I didn't forget you.
About how the phone rang,
Wanted me to get up,
Get dressed, and get going,
Or rather, more precisely — get running.
But I said go to hell,
I said I'm sick and tired
And didn't sleep at all the night before.
I'm waiting for an answer,
it's my only hope.
Soon summer will end. It's...
But we're lucky with the weather:
"Rain is going" for the fourth day in a row,
Although on the radio they said
That even the shade will be hot.
But, by the way, in the shade I'm in now,
It's dry and warm, at least for now,
But still I'm afraid.
And the days go on, one after another,
We eat one day, and drink for three,
And, generally speaking, we're living happily,
Although there's rain outside the window.
The tape deck broke,
And I'm sitting in the silence,
And quite happy to do so.
I'm waiting for an answer,
it's my only hope.
Soon summer will end. It's...
There's construction outside the window,
A crane is working.
And for the fifth year now
The restaurant around the corner is closed.
And a jar stands on the table,
And in the jar, a tulip,
And a glass on the windowsill.
And thus one year after another will slip away,
And thus life itself will go by.
And for the hundredth time
the sandwich will fall butter-side-down.
But, maybe, there will be at least one day
Maybe there will be at least one hour
When we'll be lucky (a subjectless construction!).
Кончится лето
Я выключаю телевизор,
Я пишу тебе письмо,
Про то, что больше не могу
Смотреть на дерьмо.
Про то, что больше нет сил,
Про то, что я почти запил,
Но не забыл тебя.
Про то, что телефон звонил,
Хотел, чтобы я встал,
Оделся и пошëл,
А точнее — побежал.
Но только я его послал,
Сказал, что болен и устал
И эту ночь не спал.
Я жду ответа,
Больше надежд нету,
Скоро кончится лето. Это...
А с погодой повезло,
Дождь идëт четвëртый день,
Хотя по радио сказали —
Жаркой будет даже тень,
Но, впрочем, в той тени, где я,
Пока и сухо, и тепло,
Но я боюсь пока.
А дни идут чередом,
День едим, а три пьëм,
И, в общем, весело живëм,
Хотя и дождь за окном.
Магнитофон сломался,
Я сижу в тишине,
Чему и рад вполне.
Я жду ответа,
Больше надежд нету,
Скоро кончится лето. Это...
За окном идëт стройка,
Работает кран.
И закрыт пятый год
За углом ресторан.
А на столе стоит банка,
А в банке — тюльпан,
А на окне — стакан.
И так уйдут за годом год,
Так и жизнь пройдëт.
И в сотый раз маслом вниз
Упадëт бутерброд,
Но, может, будет хоть день,
Может, будет хоть час,
Когда нам повезëт.
