RICHARD PALMER-JAMES plus JOHN WETTON


photo
John Wetton and Richard Palmer-James

Dear Dr. Vladimir Kalnitsky, …you have my permission to print …your Russian-language translations of lyrics I have written for songs recorded by the group King Crimson. I wish you every success with your project.
Sincerely yours, Richard Palmer-James
March 21, 2000



“LARKS’ TONGUES IN ASPIC”, 1973

“STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK”, 1974

“RED”, 1974

“THE GREAT DECEIVER”, 4 CD live album, 1992

“PALAZZO DELLO SPORT, UDINE, ITALY. MARCH 19, 1974”, FLAC or MP3 paid download double live album, 2010



“LARKS’ TONGUES IN ASPIC”

translations into Russian

album information



Book of Saturday
© 1973 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

If I only could deceive you
Forgetting the game
Every time I try to leave you
You laugh just the same

'Cause my wheels never touch the road
And the jumble of lies we told
Just returns to my back to weight me down…

We lay cards upon the table
The backs of our hands
And I swear I like your people
The boys in the band

Reminiscences gone astray
Coming back to enjoy the fray
In a tangle of night and daylight sounds…

All completeness in the morning
Asleep on your side
I'll be waking up the crewmen
Banana-boat ride*

She responds like a limousine
Brought alive on the silent screen
To the shuddering breath of yesterday…

There's the succour of the needy
Incredible scenes
I'll believe you in the future
Your life and death dreams

As the cavalry of despair
Takes a stand in the lady's hair
For the favour of making sweet sixteen**…

You make my life and times
A book of bluesy Saturdays
And I have to chose…
------------------------------
* It's just what it says: a boat full of bananas - a reference to Harry Belafonte's "Banana Boat Song" which was a big hit in the fifties. The song goes: "Hey Mr Tally-man, tally my bananas (meaning "count them"). Daylight come and I want to go home". The Caribbean banana-pickers deliver their fruit in the dawn. The phrase "banana-boat ride" is used as sexual imagery.
** Popular image adopted from Chuck Berry.


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Exiles
© 1973 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Now… in this fareway land
Strange… that the palms of my hands
Should be damp with expectancy

Spring… and the air's turning mild
City lights… and the glimpse of a child
Of the alleyway infantry

Friends… do they know what I mean
Rain… and the gathering green
Of an afternoon out-of-town

But Lord I had to go
My trail was laid too slow behind me
To face the call of fame
Or make a drunkard's name for me
Though now this other life
Has brought a different understanding
And from this endless days
Shall come a broader sympathy
And though I count the hours
To be alone's no injury…

My home… was a place by the sand
Cliffs… and a military band
Blew an air of normality

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Easy Money
© 1973 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

Includes alternate verse [in brackets] from live albums “USA” and “The Great Deceiver”.

translation into Russian

released on

Your admirers on the street
Gotta hook and stamp their feet
In the heat from your physique
As you twinkle by in moccasin sneakers

And I thought my heart would break    [Well I argued with the judge]
When you doubled up at the stake    [But the bastard wouldn't budge]
With your fingers all a-shake    ['Cause he caught me licking fudge]
You could never tell a winner from a snake    [And he never told me once you were a minor]

Easy money

With your figure and your face
Strutting out at every race
Throw a glass around the place
Show the colour of your crimson suspenders

We would take the money home
Sit around the family throne
My old dog could chew his bone
For two weeks we could appease the Almighty

Easy money

Got no truck with the la-di-da*
Keep my bread in an old fruit jar
Driving you out in a motor car
Getting fat on your lucky star just making

Easy money
------------------------------
* English slang meaning refined or high society and ridiculing the educated Englishmen’s manner to use French words and phrases.


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“STARLESS AND BIBLE BLACK”

translations into Russian

album information



The Great Deceiver
© 1974 EG Music Ltd. © 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Health-food faggot* with a bartered bride**
Likes to comb his hair with a dipper ride***
Once had a friend with a cloven foot
Once he called the tune in a chequered suit

Great Deceiver

In the door on the floor in a paper bag****
There's a shoe-shine boy with a gin-shop slag
She raised him up and she called him son
And she canonised the ground that he walked upon

Great Deceiver

Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary*****
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary

Cigarettes, ice cream, cadillacs, blue jeans

In the night he's a star****** in the Milky Way
He's a man of the world by the light of day
A golden smile and a proposition
And the breath of God smells of sweet sedition

Great Deceiver

Sing hymns make love get high fall dead

He'll bring his perfume to your bed
He'll charm your life 'till the cold winds blow
Then he'll sell your dreams to a picture show

Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary
Cigarettes, ice cream, figurines of the Virgin Mary

Cadillacs, blue jeans, dixieland playing on the ferry
Cadillacs, blue jeans, drop a glass full of antique sherry
------------------------------
* An American slang for a homosexual; in England it means a kind of meat ball which definitely is not health food. Later the author was criticized for supposedly aggressively-conservative flavour, “politically incorrect”, and was forced to declare officially that he did not think that healthy dish consumers incline to homosexuality or something like that.
** English name for the opera by Bendrzhikh Smetana “Sold Bride” – paraphrase for “hired woman”, “maid”.
*** Mentioning of a “dipper ride” creates an image of a wind pushing your hair back from your face, living dangerously, falling into the abyss. At the same time, the word “dipper” means Baptist. So this strophe mocks Baptism, because the composition in general is written about the devil, “a friend with a cloven foot”, who tempts us by “Faust’s” offers of a life of superficial luxury and criminal adventure.
**** Paper bag symbolizes an abject poverty and also hints at the American manner to keep booze in a paper-bag to drink it on public.
***** The strophe written by Robert Fripp.
****** Mentioning of a star is one more, quite veiled, hint on Baptism. “Big Dipper” or, if you want, “big Baptist” is an English name of the most known constellation.


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Lament
© 1974 EG Music Ltd. © 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

I guess I tried to show you how
I'd take the crowd with my guitar
And Business men would clap their hands
And clip another fat cigar
And publishers would spread the news
And print my music far and wide
And all the kids who played the blues
Would learn my licks with a bottle neck slide

But now it seems the bubble's burst
Although you know there was a time
When love songs gathered in my head
With poetry in every line
And strongmen strove to hold the doors
While with my friends I passed the age
When people stomped on dirty floors
Before I trod the rock'n'roll stage

I'll thank the man who's on the 'phone
And if he has a time to spend
The problem I'll explain once more
And indicate a sum to lend
That ten percent is now a joke
Maybe thirty, even thirty-five
I'll say my daddy's had a stroke
He'd have one now, if he only was alive

I like the way you look at me
You're laughing too down there inside
I took my chance and you took yours
You crewed my ship, we missed the tide
I like the way the music goes
There's a few good guys who can play it right
I like the way it moves my toes
Just say when you want to go and dance all night…

to the beginning



The Night Watch*
© 1974 EG Music Ltd. © 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Shine, shine, the light of good works shine
The watch before the city gates depicted in their prime
That golden light all grimy now
Three hundred years have passed
The worthy Captain and his squad of troopers standing fast

The artist knew their faces well
The husbands of his lady friends
His creditors and councillors
In armour bright, the merchant men

Official moments of the guild
In poses keen from bygone days
The city fathers frozen there
Upon the canvas dark with age

The smell of paint, a flask of wine
And turn those faces all to me
The blunderbuss and halberd-shaft
And Dutch respectability

They make their entrance one by one
Defenders of that way of life
The redbrick home, the bourgeoisie
Guitar lessons for the wife

So many years we suffered here
Our country racked with Spanish wars
Now comes a chance to find ourselves
And quiet reigns behind our doors
We think about posterity again
And so the pride of little men
The burghers good and true
Still living through the painter's hand
Request you all to understand
------------------------------
* Dedicated to Rembrandt’s painting “The Night Watch”.


to the beginning



The Mincer (+ John Wetton)
© 1974 EG Music Ltd. © 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Fingers reaching,
Fingers reeking.

Jump for the scream,
Good night, honey.

You're all alone,
Baby, breathing.

They come better looking,
But they don't come mannered.

to the beginning



“RED”

translations into Russian

album information



Fallen Angel (+ John Wetton)
© 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Tears of joy at the birth of a brother
Never alone from that time
Sixteen years through knife fights and danger
Strangely why his life not mine

West Side* skyline crying
Fallen angel dying
Risk a life to make a dime

Lifetimes spent on the streets of a city
Make us the people we are
Switchblade stings in one tenth of a moment
Better get back to the car

Fallen angel
Fallen angel

Fallen angel
Fallen angel

West Side skyline crying
For an angel dying
Life expiring in the…

Snow white side streets of cold New York City
Stained with his blood it all went wrong
Sick and tired blue wicked and wild
God only knows for how long
------------------------------
* New York district. Composition in general is cast by the Broadway musical “The West Side Story”; or by the movie of the same name.


to the beginning



One More Red Nightmare* (John Wetton)
© 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Pan American** nightmare
Ten thousand feet fun-fair
Convinced that I don't care
It's safe as houses I swear
I was just sitting musing
The virtues of cruising
When altitude dropping
My ears started popping
One more red nightmare

Sweat beginning to pour down
My neck as I turn around
I heard fortune shouting
Just get off of this outing
A farewell swan song
See you know how turbulence can be
The stewardess made me***
But the captain forbade me
One more red nightmare

Reality stirred me
My angel had heard me
The prayer had been answered
A reprieve has been granted
The dream was now broken
Though rudely awoken
Really safe and sound
Asleep on the Greyhound****
One more red nightmare
------------------------------
* Probably, the nightmare with red yes is meant. Composition is written about the fear of flights on a plane, having a hangover possibly.
** "Pan Am" - American airline.
*** The phrase is hazy, but obviously sexual fantasies are implied.
**** "Greyhound" - American long distance bus company (with a greyhound picture on sides). The hero fell asleep after the flight, or maybe all the time he was sleeping in the bus.


to the beginning



Starless (+ John Wetton)
© 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

Sundown dazzling day
Gold through my eyes
But my eyes turned within
Only see
Starless and bible black

Old friend charity
Cruel twisted smile
And the smile signals emptiness
For me
Starless and bible black

Ice blue silver sky
Fades into grey
To a grey hope
That oh yearns to be
Starless and bible black

to the beginning



“THE GREAT DECEIVER”

translations into Russian

album information



Doctor Diamond*
© 1974 EG Records Ltd. Published by EG Music Inc. (BMI).

translation into Russian

released on

[Fast singing]

I'm the driver of an underground train.
This world to me is all the same,
The houses run along inside,
down here below,
Gonna drive my train to hell,
and not a soul will know!

I'm the driver of an underground train.
Many who wear the memory, the legends of my name,
Nobody says a single word.
Falling from an open eye,
he looked at me in the face,
and made a fatal sign.

[Ballad]

I am the driver of an underground train.
Lonely nights can't bother me,
far away from wind and rain.
I come upon the station lights,
with a mighty rushing sound.
Through this foray, for the private life, I drive around.

[Syncopated part]

I'm the driver of an underground train.
Climb aboard, just climb aboard.
Your loss is my eternal gain.
Squeeze your precious body in,
before I quickly close the door.
Climb in, let's all be dark.
Your life is mine, my life is yours!
------------------------------
* The text is written about the devil, but its name refers to a London physician whose criminal practices caused a scandal in England in the early seventies.


to the beginning



“PALAZZO DELLO SPORT, UDINE, ITALY. MARCH 19, 1974”

translations into Russian

album information



Guts On My Side
© ?.

translation into Russian

released on

Sweet meat boogie / Take me to an eating meeting
Breath comes heavy / Rolling back the plastic sheeting

Gotta get our guts on our side
Gonna take a table and ride
Crunching with the crabs de mornay
Shovel up the mussel sooflay

Keep things tidy / Scrape the sausage off the ceiling
Ten ton creepers / Hauling off potato peelings

Gonna bend the runcible* spoon
Pulverise the Great Macaroon
Smuggle in the Kweechie Lorraine
Gurgitate** the hash once againe

Mint tea mother / Keep me feeling bright and happy
Avacados / Inside must be soft and pappy

Drop and oyster straight from the can
Fumble with the passion fruit flan
Gotta find some room for a roll
Penetrate the toad in the hole

Sheeps head salad / Sending off the indigestion
Take no notice / Slimmers making foul suggestions

Camembare the cucumber cream
Crucify the galloping bean
Fingers getting hot in the stew
Dip ’em in the mushroom fondew
Improvise a lobster surpreeze
Bring the jellied eels to their knees
Sip a glass of seventy-one Clarrit Chatto Newts de Verdun
------------------------------
* "Runcible" is a nonsense word invented by Edward Lear. The word appears (as an adjective) several times in his works, most famously as the "runcible spoon" used by the Owl and the Pussycat. The word "runcible" was apparently one of Lear's favourite inventions, appearing in several of his works in reference to a number of different objects. In his verse self-portrait, The Self-Portrait of the Laureate of Nonsense, it is noted that "he wear a runcible hat". Other poems include mention of a "runcible cat", a "runcible goose" (in the sense of "silly person"), and a "runcible wall". Lear does not appear to have had any firm idea of what the word "runcible" means. His whimsical nonsense verse celebrates words primarily for their sound, and a specific definition is not needed to appreciate his work.
** If "regurgitate" means to give back or vomit, then the self made verb "gurgitate" must mean to ingest.


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