Nasza klasa. - Jacek Kaczmarski.

One of the memorable and romantic things about communist Poland is that it gave birth and existence to prominent personas such as Jacek Kaczmarski. A famous polish poet and musician, he devoted his life to writing and singing abut his difficult times. What I find great about him is that he wasn't one-sidedly simplistic - yes, he did direct most of his criticism at the oppressiveness of Stalinist system in Poland, but he wasn't ignorant of the corruptions of capitalism either. And finally, not only was his simple guitar captivating, the lyrics are sad and piercing -- especially to those familiar with the time.

My rough and highly unrepresentative translation. But the song is too beautiful not to attempt putting it into English. Wonder how an English native speaker would understand a story of Polish communist times, not the typical from historical, political point of view but from an ordinary person's, human point of view.

Our Class. (Click to view the youtube link)
What has happened to our class?
asks Adam all from Tel-Aviv
hard to cope in these times,
hard to live decently at all.
What has happened to our class?
Wojtek in Switzerland in a porn-club
Writes: they pay well for something I enjoy anyways.

Kaska and Piotrek are in Canada,
they have perspectives there.
Staszek gets along in the Sates,
Pawel got used to Paris,
Goska and Przemek hardly make ends meet,
a third kid will come in May
They complain in vain to the offices,
that they want to the West too.

Magda on the other hand is in Madrid,
and is marrying a Spaniard soon.
Maciek lost his life in December,
when they had apartment runs.
Janusz, who aroused envy,
because he was like a wind,
is now a surgeon, he heals people,
but his brother hung himself.

Marek is in prison, for he rejected
to shoot to Michal,
whereas I write their stories,
and that's all of our class now.
There's one more Filip, a physicist in Moscow,
collects many awards today
He goes to Poland whenever he wishes,
he was seen by the Prime Minister.

I have found the whole class now,
On exile, in the country, in the grave
But something has changed
Each scribbles their own living.
I have found the whole class now
Grown up and mature,
I re-scratched our bygone youth,
But it didn't hurt much,
didn't hurt much...

No longer boys, but men,
Women now - not girls.
Youth will soon scar up itself,
there is noone's fault in it;
Everyone is responsible,
Everyone has thier life goals,
Everyone is relatively normal,
But that is still so little...

I don't know myself, what I dream of,
Which of the stars shines above me,
When among these familiar faces,
I'm still looking for faces of the children.
Why do I still look back,
Though noone is calling: "Hey my friend!"
Maybe someone will play tag with me,
Or at least, hide and seek...

Our own shoots, own leaves,
We fix them ourselves,
And the roots ,of course,
On exile, in the country, in the grave,
Down, to the sides, up to the sun,
To the doom, right and left,
Who can even remember, that
It is after all one and the same tree.


Piekna poezja o bolesnych czasach. Zastanawiam sie na ile wspolczesni Amerykanie beda kiedykolwiek w stanie zrozumiec glebie historii o pewnej, malej klasie. Ameryka nigdy nie wycierpiala wojny. Amerykanie od zawsze zyli w pieknym, plytkim snie. Ale swiat jest glebszy niz to co widza. Swiat moze byc piekny nawet w bolu i w trudnosciach. Kaczmarski dal tego przyklad swoja poruszajaca piosenka.