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As background to these reflections, a wonderful piece by a little appreciated German poet and song-writer—the English word folk-singer does no justice to the likes of Konstantin Wecker, Reinhard Mey, nor to the singer in question: Frank Viehweg. One day, in another life perhaps, I'll find the time to write that book which introduces these Liedermacher to the English-speaking world, singer-poets who so intelligently weave personal, political and social themes in simple well-crafted lyrics, usually with only basic guitar accompaniment, and still manage to find a receptive audience. In the absence of that book, or even the time to sketch a worthwhile translation, this song can be paraphrased as follows: 'I'm no action hero, I can't end wars or suffering through heroic physical acts or news-catching gestures, but I can give you these few words to try to make a difference.'
Nein, ich hab' nicht mehr als ein paar Worte, gegen alle Kriege und für Dich...
Increasingly, I am coming to the conclusion that, as a native-speaker of English, the only—but totally sufficient—reason for learning another language is to understand its poetry and other lyric writing; everything else can be readily translated, has already been translated, or is just not worth the effort. Incidently, if you do understand this song, then you'll need to hear Leicht verschrammt (from the same concert, Viehweg's translation of a song by Jaromír Nohavica), which is a simple masterpiece. I'm sure it's not the 'same song' that Nohavica wrote, but very occasionally an accomplished poet can create an equally interesting version, as was also the case for Mike Poulton's so-called translation of Schiller's Dom Carlos, one of the few plays I watched at the Crucible theatre when we first came to Sheffield.
Before the need for sleep overtakes me, here are the three things that—at least temporarily—smothered my self-pity today.
First, I discovered last night on Facebook that a party is taking place today in Belle Neige (QC), une journée de compassion et solidarité, for the family of Patrick, the son of my friend Lise Vinette. Patrick, who turns 37 this week, and is married with two children, Nathan and Penelope, was diagnosed last year with Lou Gehrig's disease (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, ALS). Even though I have little faith in faith—my East Belfast upbringing outside of my immediate family has given me a awesome fear of God without the comfort—I have prayed quite often since Justin was born, and I pray now that Patrick and his family will be stronger for the support they receive today. Bon courage!
Second, driving up Rokko today after collecting Sean's tropical fish from his friend Natsuki, who's been looking after them for a while since we went to England (there's a longer story here, but it'll have to wait; in brief, all but one perished on the journey 'pining for the fjords [?]') we passed an old man, who we see often, painfully, and slowly making his way up the first kilometre of the hill. This man must be at least 70 years' old, bent over, wizened embodied, yet strangely vital, doggedly genki. It is said that he is homeless—or rather, that his home is under the flyover bridge that scoops traffic up a shortcut crossing the valley above the more winding old road we were driving on. It seems that he makes his way down to the city in the morning, then spends a good part of the day trudging back up. Our Sisyphus. And like the mythical hill-climber, we only ever see him walking up, never down, as though perhaps a car arrives under cover of darkness every night, bundles the poor man in, and leaves him stranded at hillfoot, to begin the climb again. There is little expression in his face, and no-one ever stops to offer help (myself included): one has to wonder why he goes on, other than sheer force of habit.The third topic, which informs the title of this piece, was the Irish famine. I started thinking about this recently, when finally I got around to listening to Famine, another track on the Sineád O'Connor CD Universal Mother, which also features Scorn not his simplicity, the focus blog post about Justin a little while ago. I am very grateful to Sue Smith for sending me this, even if—or perhaps because (!)—the Famine rap is so troubling it's taken my mind off a lot of other stuff recently. So this article will come ...but not tonight (it's already 1:30 and Justin will be up at 5) Meantime, here the track.
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