NOSTALGIC CARTOON
Original lyrics by Tatyana Koroliova
By the tops of the bushy pine-trees Hardly lifting his heavy eye-lids Why on Earth do we get crazy in falls? All that buzz will eventually calm down Once again, rotten leaves start their dance in the air By the windows somebody might walk in the night
Translated by Alexei Markov
By the birches all dressed in yellow
Wasted autumn has been hitchhiking
Full of vodka and pretty mellow
A cold wind, her drinking buddy
Has been howling his boozy top hits
On the roads all wet and muddy
Is it just a weather conditions’ caprice?
Or just our boring daily routine
Or just our ramshackle homes in despair
Should we stop on the way by a cheap roadhouse?
Or just join local folk in a country saloon?
It’s the drunk autumn that has been drawing of us
A nostalgic cartoon!
Misty veils will blind our eyeballs
All the towns will get foggy
And the Sun won’t light their grey walls
Then you’ll feel your strong heart beating
As you get a little sober
Waiting for the morning disaster
Brought by that destructive hangover!
Is it just a weather conditions’ caprice?
Or just our boring daily routine?
Or the fall morning after is having her aches?
Sprinkling rain on the glass to the autumnal tunes
It’s the weary autumn is drawing of us
A nostalgic cartoon!
Original lyrics by Tatyana Koroliova
Translated by Anna Zaigraeva
Tripping over where growth is thicker
Hardly moving her feet and veering
From her journeys exhausted, weary
Autumn comes, full of groans and liquor
With their eyelids all heavy-leaden
Autumn winds lurch between the shingles
Rooftops clatter, the wind-chime jingles
Raising Cain, crying Armageddon.
Why does autumn bring madness to us in its air?
Is it just that a change in the weather arrives?
Blows through boring, relentless routines of our lives
Gives a crone's creaky voice to our homes' disrepair?
Should we walk to a cheap roadside tavern, perhaps?
It's where everyone goes to complain and to kvetch
Drunken autumn is mocking creation's collapse
A nostalgic sketch
In the end, she will calm her senses
Veil her eyes with a misty blindfold
Drape in fog roads and wooden fences
Dip the towns into heavens' white gold
And the heart will jump in disquiet
In the wake of the wicked potion
Apprehensive of morning riots
Of the hangover's grim commotion
Rotten leaves in the air swirl and circle and play
Showing us that a change in the weather arrives
Winds will blow through the boring routines of our lives
Autumn languishes under the weather today
But by dusk she will sharpen her pencil once more
In the doorway she'll stand, watching shadows stretch
And hung-over, she'll draw of the world, as before,
A nostalgic sketch
