Here is another song by Vysotsky:

Who cares that your old lady's always nagging?
Who cares that you are breaking out in hives?
Who cares that, once again, you're off the wagon?
Be thankful that, at least, you're still alive.

Big deal -- your only jacket doesn't wear well.
Big deal -- the nightmares tortured you till five.
Big deal -- somebody mugged you in the stairwell.
Be thankful that, at least, you're still alive.

Yeah, yeah -- your poker partner died of scurvy.
Yeah, yeah -- you're looking pale and sleep-deprived.
Yeah, yeah -- you spent a week-end on a gurney.
Be thankful that, at least, you're still alive.

So what if you've got footprints on your forehead?
So what if your career just took a dive?
So what if your cholesterol is horrid?
Be thankful that, at least, you're still alive.

No sweat -- you never learned to play the fiddle.
No sweat -- another summons has arrived.
No sweat -- your head is hurting you a little.
Be thankful that, at least, you're still alive.

It's true that it's my fault, and I am sorry.
It's true -- you can't achieve unless you strive.
It's true. I only have a single worry:
To whom should I give thanks that I'm alive?


I liked this song a lot.

Left hook, right hook, an uppercut,
A jab to start round nine;
Boris Budkeyev's kicking butt --
Alas, that butt is mine.
I'm hoping I survive this round,
I'm praying for the bell.
Another jab, I'm on the ground,
And I'm not feeling well.

   Budkeyev was thinking, while punching my nose,
   That life is as pretty and sweet as a rose.

"Four, five, six, seven..." goes the count,
I stagger to my feet;
My fans don't think I can surmount
His lead, and fear defeat;
I'm not conserving strength, by plan,
For later in the fight --
I just can't hit my fellow man,
I just don't think it's right.

   Budkeyev was thinking, while stomping my toes,
   That life is as pretty and sweet as a rose.

The fans have filled the air with boos,
I'm letting down their hopes.
Budkeyev's sure he cannot lose,
And I am on the ropes.
He's a Siberian, I bet,
They're really hard to shake.
I asked him, "Aren't you tired yet?
Sit down and take a break!"

   But he would not listen, for he's one of those
   Who think life's as pretty and sweet as a rose.

He keeps on landing jabs and hooks,
He's prancing all around;
I bob and weave, but now it looks
Like someone's going down.
He's reached complete exhaustion, and
Collapses with a sigh;
The referee lifts up my hand,
Which hadn't hurt a fly.

   He thought, as he lay there, that life's like a rose...
   For some, like a rose -- and for some, it just blows.
 
This one sounds better in Russian, but translation is not too bad.

tp, no one is suggesting that you stop posting Russian lyrics. This thread was created specifically so that you could share these lyrics with Members. We just thought that maybe the subject merited it's own thread, as a kind of speciality. You probably know more about this than many of us here and perhaps people might want to share their thoughts on the subject and discuss it with you.

t-p, what sort of music are these song settings ? The boxing one sounds as if it might be rock music. Or are they jazz, cabaret songs, influenced by Russian folk themes ? We are pretty ignorant of performers like these.

t-p, you must be thrilled to have your own newly created thread about Russian songs.  I know I would if I had my own thread about Dylan Thomas, Daffyd ap Gwilym, The Mabinogion or even Owain Glendwr!!  So we all look forward to you posting here!

I think they might have been rock music in any other culture.  But rock music was strictly forbidden in the USSR in the 60s and 70s as musical genre,  so the "emotional release" in these songs was directed into the so-called "bard song" genre...  Russia's social equivalent of Woody Guthrie or early acoustic Bob Dylan.

The Soviet Union even "inherited" an American outcast named "Dean Reed", who wrote proto-communist songs, emigrated to the USSR, was given soviet citizenship, and was promoted as being the acceptable face of American rock (which, of course, he never was - he was really more of a second-rate musician who made a career as a proviet-soviet stooge than anything else).

"Bardovskie pesnie" ("Bard Songs") are still an important genre in Russian popular music - they're essentially poetry sung to the guitar (always - never any other instrument).  There are modern "stars" in the genre who tour all over the country - playing what are, essentially, folk-club venues.

The beginnings of soviet rock have been traced in books by producer, dj, and promoter Artemy Troitsky. Essentially Leningrad was the breeding-ground - far enough away from the dead hand of Moscow to have a small "underground" scene (which gave the Russian language the word undergraund).  There were two many venues - "Pushkinskaya 10", a strange hippie commune just off Nevsky Prospekt  (you got into it through an arch on the adjacent street - Ligovsky Prospekt, opposite Moskovsky Railway Station),  and "Cafe Saigon",  which was really called "Cafe No #102" and whose name "Saigon" was merely the invention of the "regulars".  (No connection with SE Asia at all existed, least of all the food - which was mainly gristly rissoles,  if anything at all was available).  The first rock bands to "make it" as far as releasing samizdat albums (on cassette) were AQUARIUM (fronted, led and run by Boris Grebenshikov - still with as the Grand Old Man of Russian Rock) and KINO (fronted by Viktor Soy, a half-Koryak guy from either Kamchatka or the Kuril Islands - stories varied).  Soy was later killed in a car-crash, becoming the "James Dean" of Russian rock in the process - to this day there's "Viktor Soy's wall" of Kino-dedicated graffiti here in Moscow, off Arbat Street.   The two bands were wildly different - KINO were a post-punk quasi-two-tone outfit hugely influence by THE CURE;  whereas AQUARIUM were half-rooted in the poetic "Bardic" tradition, and the other half in extremely progressive rock.  Slightly later to arrive in Leningrad were Yuri Shevchuk's band "DDT", who had been driven out of their home city of Ufa, in the Urals,  but this was to have important consequences.  Raisa Gorbachev secretly loved DDT's music,  and she intervened personally to "fix" the band's very dodgy paperwork and get them work permits.  They also acquired a legal venue they could play, and shared it with the other bands so that the first legal rock concerts could be held (at "Saigon" at first - then things moved to Tam-Tam, at the old "Pushkinskaya 12" address.  The same venue is now the progressive rock-club "Fish Fabrique".).  Irina Papernaya simultaneously opened a club in Moscow which had a licence to hold legal rock-concerts - "and the rest is history"       (The modern-day place on Nevsky claiming to be "Cafe Saigon" is a fake - the original was where the SAS-Radisson Hotel now stands, and was demolished to enable the hotel's construction).

Thanks for that Reiner. This kind of stuff doesn't even fall into the world music ghetto over here does it, maybe John Peel played a track or two back in the day ?

Now you mention it, I recall seeing a tv documentary on Dean Reed within the last year, The Red Elvis. Given a hard time when returning to the US in the eighties and found dead in dubious circumstances back in the GDR. And probably on a par with Johnny Hallyday as a rock 'n' roller !

Chockey.

The ears ring with the bold music of an attack... Make an accurate pass, shoot hard!
And everything is right, if on the ice is
The Magnificent Five and a Goalkeeper!

Chorus:
The ice brotherhood combats hard
And we trust in courage of desperate guys
Real men play hockey,
No coward plays hockey!

Let the place behind the rival's net to be more frequently Illuminated by red lamp's victorious flash!
But if there's a need, defends brilliantly
The Magnificent Five and a Goalkeeper!

Chorus

Many beautiful games would be seen And we won't forget, we'll never forget as long ago
Gold and cups have been won at ice battles by
The Magnificent Five and a Goalkeeper!

Chorus

This this song sounds: http://www.chidlovski.com/personal/1972/znreel/retro/mzvuk01.htm

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=9ASChsuiuw8&feature=related

This song and the singer were (and are still) popular. This song is called Echo. They are echo of each other.

This is Okudzhava's words.

THE LAST
TROLLEY BUS
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=fUYkK2Inra8 He sings this song here.

When I’m in trouble and totally done
and when all my hope I abandon
I get on the blue trolley bus on the run,
the last one,
at random.
Night trolley, roll on sliding down the street,
around the boulevards keep moving
to pick up all those who are wrecked and in need
of rescue
from ruin.
Night trolley bus will you please open your doors !
On wretched cold nights, I can instance,
your sailors would come, as a matter of course,
to render
assistance.
So many a time they have lent me a hand
to help me get out of grievance…
Imagine, there is so much kindness behind
this silence
and stillness.
Last trolley rolls round the greenery belt
and Moscow, like river, dies down…
the hammering blood in my temples I felt
calms down
calms down.
Translated by Alec Vaganov

This is very popular song. Most of his songs are popular.

The last time I visited my friend she gave me CD of Mityaev.
I never heard about him. I don't think I am going to like it, but I have it.

I found his on youtube.

This song is about him writing with white paint that he loves her.

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=PyE8n0v8cfQ&feature=related

Reiner, Can you understand this song?

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=T-Us4Tn7VWw&feature=related

This is about French woman who is going on Paris street. However, she is Russian woman, she is a moscovite as she used to be.