Oh, oh! You know I need the flow!
And if I have the flow,
Then I will tell you my canine wo-
Bow-wow!
In South Africa they have a statue of a dog
That led some drunk sailors home through the fog
And we have a statue of a homeless dog
That suffered at the hands of a stupid hog.
It took a lot of money to
Build that doggy monument
Or did they simply sign
On the dotted line with their voices
We say
And so do our dear citizens
Here, they
Are three
Names to speak:
Shakhnazarov, Babarykin and Sukhodeev
And many others, both good and evildoers
Among them one might even find Oleg Kulik
He was already famous as a dog
But his fame hadn’t reached its peak
A dog’s a big symbol in European culture
Ha! And in literature too, I’ll venture—
Take for example these famous lines:
“Come, Jim, give me your paw for luck”
A Jim that strong can’t be found in the gym!
Let’s work out beneath the moon like bucks
And overcome our features as ephemeral creatures!
Come, Jim, give me your paw for luck!
That’s a poem for a Doberman
Written by Esenin at the dacha of Kachalov
And so we should begin again, as tabula rasa
Vo! Vo! I got to have some flow!
And if I have some flow,
Then I’ll tell you my canine wo-
Bow wow!
The dog-catching thugs come out at night
They fish for us
and gulp us up
Like wolf pups
“That is the law,” they say
“And the law is of the paw,” they say.
And we, to spite them
Will herd up and bite them
We have the right
To herd up and fight
My brothers! That’s the key to survival
You got to fight all your rivals
Together, cool!
As a class who’ll howl!
If you’re not with us, you’re against us!
We’re so lucky we’re sobaki!
Who said a dog is an atheist?
Saint Francis preached to all, even to the dogs,
Some thought he was homeless
Others, holy.
And in San Francisco bums sleep not alone, but
Hugging doggies.
That is also a herd.
Or haven’t you heard?
In San Francisco it’s not warm enough
Of course, they have no winter
But they have no summer either
Although you know when you get there
You want to go home
Because the constant winds will chill you right to the bone!
And that’s no fun.
Wanna be a bum?
Find a dog and tell it “Come on,
Let’s lie around and wait for the sun,
Although you know it’ll never come
I knew a guy named Come
And this Come, he lived a year among a pack of dogs
He didn’t have much of a choice:
To live with dogs or live with the bums?
Dogs are better, they don’t attract the cops
(Which are a herd as well, whenever you get stopped.)
‘And didn’t you get lonely with the dogs for a year?’
‘Nope, it was simple, I just twisted my knobs and
Changed my channel to become a dog and
Unlike Oleg Kulik’s performance, this was for real.
‘And were you the alpha?’
‘No, the alpha was a dog.’
This conversation took place in the zoo near the wolf cage
The wolf paced the cage, looked at kids half his age
Who thought: ‘The wolf is the meanest motherfucker around!’
When people talk about him they sound
Like this: “The wolf is useful. He’s the surgeon of the forest,
A guy named Ivan and the wolf caught the firebird.
And did I mention the wolf
That gave birth to ancient Rome?
I could talk about this until the cows come home
Or about how wolves sometimes imitate dogs
Just like that
You can’t tell one from the other
Children pat them on the head, and want to tame them like their mother
Tamed them. They yell “doggie, doggie!”
But that isn’t a dog, it’s a wolf!
It’ll bite you in the leg, it’s tough!
And no matter if you’re old and rough
Or young enough
Or a man in the prime of life
You shouldn’t try to pet it
It’ll eat you in a minute
It’ll eat you, don’t you get it?
All wolves have the same kind of fangs
That can tear and chew any thang
And you it will lick
This ain’t Oleg Kulick!
A wolf can’t be discerned
From a dog, haven’t you learned?
But there are nuances.
Nuances?
What kind?
No answer!
Hardly anybody knows
And so the herd grows
Regardless of differences it heads out in a pack,
And that’s why so few people come back
This is what I wanted to hint at:
There are some dangerous apes,
They imitate people, like the wolves do dogs.
And which is the man, and which is the ape?
You can never tell just by looking at their shape.
In Canada they have a zoo with a mirror and a sign that says “world’s most dangerous animal!”
If the elephant cage is labeled "Buffalo," don’t believe it! Ne-ver! Ne-ver'!
The resemblance is minimal!
Even those dog-catching fellows are often gorellows
They grab not only dogs and not only wolfs but people too
I swear to you!
I have a friend who was bred from apes
Or so they said, but I didn’t get, what they meant by ‘bred’
Was it bred in the sense of ‘giving birth?’
Or was he ape’s “bread,” was he eaten, has he left the earth?
They said he left them—I heard—but I don’t remember word for word
What happened, maybe he did, or maybe he went off to find a secret place, a sacred space.
First he spent time as an ape and then found
Himself something else, like when Oleg Kulik stopped being a hound.
credits
from HHHH №2 ПППП,
released February 8, 2015
Lyrics by Psoy Korolenko, translated by Martin Daughtry
Music by Psoy Korolenko & Igor Krutogolov
Israeli label dealing with unusual experimental/avantgarde music.
Was established in 2003 and was
dedicated to promote underground and independent music scene in Israel. The label plans to release the works and unique collaborations of independent artists of any kind from Israel and abroad, as well as live recordings of concerts organized by "Auris Media"....more
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