Галич - и этим сказано многое      

Ответ на еще не возникший вопрос
Почему на английском? - Так получилось, в этом нет тайного смысла, просто писалось в "детстве" для англоязычной газетки ;о)

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You never know, how to call them – poets, singers, bards. I call them poets with the guitars. That’s how it was before – a poet took his little old guitar and tried to make audience feel his poem by means of music. All these wonderful sounds, pauses, specific intonations made people feel something they could never tell anyone. How can you tell what you feel? It is rather difficult to cope with it.
That’s how it began. People started to keep in minds those poems, which were to be sung. People started to sing them with old friends and the new ones. And very soon the songs of these strange poets, these poets with the guitars came into being famous. And each of us now has the beloved song of that kind, even without knowing the author. I want to tell you about mine.
Of cause, I could have told you about songs of Okudjava, Vysotsky, Vizbor, Gorodnitsky, but I wouldn’t. They are very famous, their masterpieces are the basis of poetry-to-sing, they are genius. But for me they are not the first ones.
Actually, you will never know who was the first and who is the best. You have to point it yourself. Once and forever. That’s what I did. And that’s why my favorite song belongs to Alexander Galich.
He is the one for me, whom I call the first and the best. His songs are rather different. I should say even too different. You can find here songs-jokes, lyrics, poems about war, political satires – everything. There were no forbidden topics for him, there were no spheres of life unknown to him, there were no emotions he never felt and couldn’t express. Who else could absorb all life in his poetry except Galich? For me there were only Pushkin and Galich.
But most of his songs I like the one called “Song about the bicycle”. It is called so, but if you listen to it, if you read it, surely you’ll say: “This is the song of life”.
What would you like to hear? What would you like to learn from this song? Here is the biography of Galich. His times – the difficult times of stagnation and depression in all spheres of life. These difficult 60-s, when no one could express his own point of view aloud – only at the kitchens in the company of good old friends. These awful times, when each new friend could be an informer. An author of well-known “politically and ideologically dangerous” songs, a friend of Sakharov, a dissident poet, Galich never knew an easy life. He was thrown out of all spheres he was involved in. He lost all his poor privileges. Partly, all this happened because of friends-informers, people who were able to slander their own mother to have money, or to make career, or to become nearer to the authority, or to have some privileges. All of this – in two lines:
Good day to you, friend-informer,
Congratulate you with your new book.
But maybe this theme is not rather interesting to you? Well, it’s up to you to decide whatever you want to find in the song. You want to know about life purposes? Then you must know – there are several of them. In early childhood Galich wanted to have a bicycle – and all his growing up time was devoted to that childish dream. And then he got it. He achieved his goal. But this bicycle wasn’t a dream anymore. Why? Was it too late? Was it too difficult to wait for such a long time? Or maybe achieving a goal is killing the dream? Maybe it is always so – one purpose replaces another? Galich also puts that question. Now he is a grown up. He wants his book to be printed. He dreams of the future, when one will be able to take it from the bookcase. But here is our question – in the last phrase. After all - “My bicycle for a grown up is becoming dusty in the hall”. So what happens with your dreams and purposes? Galich wants you to answer. And to think of your own life, and your own purposes, or maybe the only one, vitally important.
What else? Love, of course. The only love of one’s childhood. This isn’t your young teacher; this isn’t your pretty classmate. Too early to feel in such a way. Too childish you are still. I’m speaking about this naive passion towards bicycle. This ever being desire of having that bicycle. This overflowing hatred towards the owner of your beloved bicycle. These wonderful dreams of HOW it will be. How you will ride it faster and faster. How all your neighbours will watch you flying about. Isn’t it the first love? Or at least training to love, to feel, to live? Call it whatever you like to. But remember – that is true. This feeling is truthful. Everyone knows it.
You can find in this song everything. And it’ll be the true. One world, one sentence – but you’ll find what you want. Actually, you’ll find even more. Maybe you won’t notice it at first, but you’ll find something very important. A little piece of yourself, of your character, of your soul, of your heart, of your thoughts – that’s what you’ll find in this wonderful song. The “Song about bicycle” by Alexander Galich, a stranger with the guitar.