Vladimir Vysotsky My Gypsy Song

Vladimir Vysotsky My Gypsy Song.

One of my favorite songs growing up was Vladimir Vysotsky’s My Gypsy Song. Listening to this song recently, I was so happy to still feel love for this masterpiece.

Vladimir Vysotsky was an incredibly talented singer, guitarist, songwriter, poet, and actor. Born in 1938, Mr. Vysotsky truly embodied the voice for so many people in the Soviet Union. Luckily, even though I was born and raised in New York City, I had the chance to listen to his cassette tapes at home. Those tapes would be played so often on my Walkman that I think one of them broke. My heart would flourish every time, as if Mr. Vysotsky really understood me and others. Mixing various emotions ranging from outrage, melancholy, love, and humor, Vladimir’s music still makes me tear up inside, because of his pureness and honest expression. His genuine personality was grander than life itself. Dying at the very early age of 42, Vladimir Vysotsky was able, through music and film, to give many people the strength to go on with their life.

My Gypsy Song is the best example of Vysotsky’s dynamic singing style. Having an incredible ability to sing with strength, while displaying a sense of flight and inner pain as well, makes my heart be filled with various emotions. From one aspect, pain of life’s unfairness enters my soul. Humans not being what they potentially can be. I cry and join Vladimir Vysotsky. On the other side, there is a certain hope. A hope that can be completely personal in structure, but ultimately a unified one that deals with a better tomorrow. With these kinds of songs, you do see what the world has become since then. While his art tries to bring solace to others, people have chosen to be isolated with the world around them. He has lasted way beyond his untimely death in 1980, the year I was born.

My Gypsy Song:

In my dreams are yellow flames,
And in a hoarse voice, dreaming, I say:
-Wait a little, wait a little, –
It will be clearer in the morning!
But even in the morning, it’s not right,
There’s none of that happiness:
Or are you smoking on an empty stomach,
Or are you drinking with a hangover.
In the taverns are green shtof-bottles,
and white napkins.
It’s a paradise for the poor and for fools,
For me, I’m like a bird in a cage!
In the church, there’s a stench and half-light,
The church clerks are smoking incense.
No! And in the church, it’s not right,
Everything is not as it should be.
I’m hurrying onto the hill
So it will come to no good
And on the hill there’s an alder tree,
And at the foot of the hill is a cherry.
At the least, to entwine the slope with ivy,
For me, it would be a pleasure
At least something else…
Everything is not as it should be!
And so I go through the fields, by the river.
Light – darkness, there’s no god!
And in the clear field, there’s cornflowers,
А distant road.
By the road is a thick forest
With witches Baba-Yaga,
And at the end of that road,
Is а roadblock with axes.
Somewhere, horses dance in sync with the music,
Grudgingly and smoothly.
By the road, it’s not right,
but at the end of it, it’s even worse.
And not the church, nor the tavern –
None of it is holy!
No, boys, it’s not right,
It’s not right, boys!