by Federico García Lorca
(June 5, 1898 — August 19, 1936)
Rough translation by Leonard Cohen (in 1998 for a song he called Take This Waltz on the album I’m Your Man)
En Viena hay diez muchachas,
un hombro donde solloza la muerte
y un bosque de palomas disecadas.
Hay un fragmento de la mañana
en el museo de la escarcha.
Hay un salón con mil ventanas.
¡Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Toma este vals con la boca cerrada.
Este vals, este vals, este vals,
de sí, de muerte y de coñac
que moja su cola en el mar.
Te quiero, te quiero, te quiero,
con la butaca y el libro muerto,
por el melancólico pasillo,
en el oscuro desván del lirio,
en nuestra cama de la luna
y en la danza que sueña la tortuga.
¡Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Toma este vals de quebrada cintura.
En Viena hay cuatro espejos
donde juegan tu boca y los ecos.
Hay una muerte para piano
que pinta de azul a los muchachos.
Hay mendigos por los tejados,
hay frescas guirnaldas de llanto.
¡Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Toma este vals que se muere en mis brazos.
Porque te quiero, te quiero, amor mío,
en el desván donde juegan los niños,
soñando viejas luces de Hungría
por los rumores de la tarde tibia,
viendo ovejas y lirios de nieve
por el silencio oscuro de tu frente.
¡Ay, ay, ay, ay!
Toma este vals del "Te quiero siempre".
En Viena bailaré contigo
con un disfraz que tenga
cabeza de río.
¡Mira qué orillas tengo de jacintos!
Dejaré mi boca entre tus piernas,
mi alma en fotografías y azucenas,
y en las ondas oscuras de tu andar
quiero, amor mío, amor mío, dejar,
violín y sepulcro, las cintas del vals.
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Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost --
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.
I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand --
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.
There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.
There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow --
Ay, ay, ay, ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there, and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist --
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now. It's all that there is.
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Are there popular bands today that would write a song like Spanish Bombs and mention a poet who was tortured and then murdered by a right-wing militia for his support of modernity in poetry, politics and morals? His only crime was to be outspoken about values that were not shared by a conservative and heavily armed group fighting for control of his country.
I remember mulling over Clash lyrics while in grad school with some folks who were working for Paul Preston. How places of great tragedy have turned into lazy drinking at a “disco casino” for British tourists.
The lyrics led me to Lorca’s poems and thus to a deeper understanding of life and civil war in 1930s Spain. It still gives me chills to listen and read about this period in time in Europe, not just because of social consciousness about incredible brutality against civilians but because of the sad similarity to world events unfolding even today. The Wikipedia explains the fundamental rift that left hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and that devastated the Spanish economy for decades:
During and in the wake of the war, the Nationalists carried out a program of mass killing of opponents where house searches were carried out, and unwanted individuals were often jailed or killed. Trade-unionists, known republican sympathisers and critics of Franco’s regime were among the first to be targeted. The Nationalists also carried out aerial bombings of civilian areas with the help of the German and Italian air forces.
[…]
Republican sympathizers proclaimed it as a struggle between “tyranny and democracy”, or “fascism and liberty”, and many young, committed reformers and revolutionaries joined the International Brigades, which thought saving the Spanish Republic was the front line of the war against fascism. Franco’s supporters, however, especially the younger members of the officer corps, viewed it as a battle between the red hordes of communism and anarchism on the one hand and “Christian civilization” on the other.