Friday, December 30, 2011

1000 SONGS - DAY 154: SONG #184

Day 154: Another song by Európa Kiadó

Today's song should match the category "Song that makes me sad"; as there have been so many sad songs on that blog lately, here is a song the mood of which is not to be called "sad" in my opinion, but it is also clearly not a "hippy-yippie-happy"-song. As I want to practice my Hungarian a bit (not to loose all of it and to be "fluent" when I am going to Szegedi Tudományegyetem to give a course on West-African Religions once more in February), I chose another song by my fav Hungarian band and tried to translate the lyrics once again. The song is in "visszafogott hangulat", which I found hard to translate. I ended up with "low-keyed mood" after consulting the Akadémiai Kiadó Dictionaries: Hungarian to German and English to Hungarian (I got one for the purpose of making myself understood when teaching in English in Hungary) and some German-English dictionaries. This is a live version of Nem Banja. Although the voice of Menyhárt Jenő does not easily and smoothly get all the notes (maybe he should stop "singing" songs like "Mocskos Idők" in the shouting style...), this is a fine rendering of a fine tune, all in all:




Halk zene, visszafogott hangulat
Az órámra nézek, épp éjfélt mutat
Itt ülök egy bárban, ő itt ül velem szembe
Olyan vonzó, és olyan idegen
Ragyog és sugárzik, finom és magabiztos
A szépsége titkos, de beavat, ahogy rám nevet
Nem tudom, ki ő, és mit mondjak neki
A szavak néha semmit nem jelentenek
De ha ő nem bánja, én nem bánom
És lenn az utcán megvárom

Ugyanaz a csillag, ugyanaz a bolygó
Ugyanaz a város és ugyanaz a bár
Az éjszaka előtte és nincs mit vesztene
Ö éppen itt, és engem éppen itt talált
Ragyog és sugárzik, finom és magabiztos
A szépsége titkos, de beavat, ahogy rám nevet
Nem tudom, ki ő, és mit mondjak neki
A szavak néha semmit nem jelentenek
De ha ő nem bánja, én nem bánom
És lenn az utcán megvárom


Quiet music, low-keyed mood
I look at my watch, it shows midnight
Here I sit in a bar, face to face with her*
So attractive and so foreign to me
She* shines and gleams, fine and self-conscious
Her* beauty is a secret she* lets me in on when she smiles
I don’t know who she* is and what to say to her*
Sometimes the words don’t have no meaning
But if she* does not regret, I do not regret
And keep waiting down in the street

It is the same star and the same planet
It is the same town and the same bar
The night before her and nothing she could loose
She is here right now and she has found me here
She shines and gleams, fine and self-conscious
Her beauty is a secret she lets me in on when she smiles
I don’t know who she is and what to say to her
Sometimes the words don’t have no meaning
But if she does not regret, I do not regret
And keep waiting down in the street

* as there is no grammatical gender in Hungarian, it could also mean: his, he a.s.o.

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