Italian Songwriters: Francesco Guccini

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Incontro

Encounter

E correndo mi incontrò lungo le scale
quasi nulla mi sembrò cambiato in lei.
La tristezza poi ci avvolse come miele
per il tempo scivolato su noi due.
Il sole che calava già
rosseggiava la città
già nostra e ora straniera
e incredibile e fredda
come un istante "deja vu"
ombra della gioventù ci circondava la nebbia

She met me running down the stairs
It seemed to me that almost nothing was changed in her.
Then the sadness covered us like honey
for the time passed on us.
The sun was going down
and painted the town of red
a town that was once ours and now was foreign
and incredible and cold (1)
as an instant "deja vu",
a shadow of youth, the fog surrounded us

Auto ferme ci guardavano in silenzio
vecchi muri proponevano nuovi eroi.
Dieci anni da narrare l'uno all'altro
ma le frasi rimanevano dentro in noi.
"Cosa fai ora? Ti ricordi...?
Erano belli i nostri tempi!
Ti ho scritto... È un anno...
Mi han detto che eri ancor via"
Poi la cena a casa sua
la mia nuova cortesia
stoviglie color nostalgia.
E le frasi quasi fossimo due vecchi
rincorrevano solo il tempo dietro a noi.
per la prima volta vidi quegli specchi
capii i quadri, i soprammobili ed i suoi.

Stationary cars, as if they were looking at us in silence
old walls were showing new heroes (2)
Ten years to recount each other
but the sentences remained inside us .
"What do you do now ? Do you remember ... ?
They were fantastic our times !
I wrote to you... It is a year ...
They told me that you were still away "
Then the dinner at his house
my newness courtesy
crockery with the color of nostalgia.
And the sentences (between us), as if we were two old persons,
only recalled the past
for the first time I saw those mirrors (3)
I realized the meaning of the paintings, of the ornaments and of her parents

I nostri miti morti ormai
la scoperta di Hemingway
il sentirsi nuovi
le cose sognate e ora viste
la mia America e la sua
diventate nella via
la nostra città tanto triste.
Carte e vento volan via nella stazione
freddo e luci accese forse per noi lì
ed infine in breve la sua situazione
uguale quasi a tanti nostri film
come in un libro scritto
male lui s'era ucciso per natale
ma il triste racconto sembrava assorbito dal buio

Our myths dead now
the discovery of Hemingway
the feeling of being new
things we dreamed of, and now we have seen
My America and its (America)
which they had become over time
our city so sad.
Cards and wind fly off in the train station
Cold and lights turned on maybe for us there
and finally in short her situation
almost equal to many of our favorite films;
as in a book written badly, he had killed himself on Christmas Eve
but the sad tale seemed being absorbed by the dark

Povera amica che narravi
dieci anni in poche frasi
ed io i miei in un solo saluto.
E pensavo dondolato dal vagone
"Cara amica, il tempo prende e il tempo dà.
Noi corriamo sempre in una direzione
ma qual sia e che senso abbia chi lo sa!
Restano i sogni senza tempo
le impressioni di un momento
le luci nel buio di case intraviste da un treno.
Siamo qualcosa che non resta
frasi vuote nella testa
e il cuore di simboli pieno.

Poor friend that you told to me
ten years in a few sentences
and I, my years, in one single greeting.
And I thought swung by the wagon of the train
"Dear friend, the time takes and the time it gives.
We are running always in one direction
but what is the direction and what sense it has, who knows!
They remain timeless dreams,
impressions of a moment,
the lights in the darkness of homes sighted for a moment from a train.
We are something that does not remain,
empty phrases in the head
and the heart full of symbols.

   

On YouTube (Recommended Video)

   

 

Notes

(1)

The town is Bologna

(2)

Advertising posters with new subjects (ten years after)

(3)

The old fashioned furniture and furnishings in the family house of the girl

 

Other songs of Francesco Guccini transalated: La locomotiva (The Locomotive)

 

 

© Music-Graffiti May 2015

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