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VLADIMIR VYSOTSKY (1938-1980)
FRIENDSHIP IN SONGS
Vldimir Vysotsky valued friendship more than any other people’s relationships. No wonder he wrote several songs about friends and friendship. Here goes the translation of the song where a friend grieves about his brother-in-arms who fell in a battle. Paradoxically the man expresses his deepest sorrow through a number of reprimands to his fallen friend. In English this song is performed by Fred Altieri (USA).
HE DIDN’T COME BACK
FROM THE BATTLE
Now the world seems so strange, though it looks just the same: Skies are blue as the iris petal,
Just the same are the forest, the river, the flame,
But he didn’t come back from the battle.
I don’t see who was right in disputes that we had,
I cannot understand who was better ...
Yet I started to miss him as soon as this lad
Failed to come back alive from the battle.
With his gibberish talk he would wake me at dawn,
He would not let me sleep with his prattle;
His remarks would be wrong, he would slip in a song,
But he yesterday fell in the battle.
It’s not loneliness that I’m talking about;
In my heart pain’s unable to settle ...
By the wind my campfire at once was put out
When he didn’t return from the battle.
Spring has just shaken off winter’s shackles. And I
Simply called him, forgetting the matter:
“Buddy, leave me a drag!” — but there is no reply,
He will never come back from the battle.
To the troubles we have, our dead will respond,
They’ll protect our values and treasures,
Skies reflect in the forest as if in the pond
And the trees look as if painted azure.
In the dug-out we had I would share with him
Time and space and a battered old kettle ...
Now I own them alone. But I really seem
To have fallen myself in the battle.
Translated by George Tokarev
Performance
Fred Altieri (USA).
Translated by George Tokarev
© GEORGE TOKAREV 1981
Friendship IN SONGS