…”Only once in a lifetime does one meet…” – Isabella Yuryeva once sang lyrically, but without justification. No. There are plenty of meetings, and half of them (well, almost) are meetings with beauty. For example, Julian is a singer. He sings. Very lyrically, in fact. And some malicious virtual journalists write about him that he… And even, I'm not afraid to say it,… . How can you be so cynical? Maybe he's not… at all, but just an ordinary… ? You have to somehow answer for your words.
Again, a professional. Not some teenager. Well, a teenager will howl, “Smoooook on the water!” in a nasty voice. Who benefits from that? The Deep Purples? The neighbors? The parents and the school administration? No one. Or maybe he'll yell, “Yisty dai!” He'll yell. “Marina ate soup!” the mountain echo will answer him gloomily. And silence. So don't do it.
Let me listen, I thought, to see what it is he's singing, Yulian. Maybe something useful. And yes, indeed. He has this song, “Mama, I'm calling you from the train station.” I don't know whose music it is, but the music is so-so, it's not about the music, it's about the words. And I don't know whose words they are either. Music by Prodolny with words by Poperechny, or vice versa—words by Krutoy with music by Pokaty. If anyone's interested, let them write to Radio Mayak, and they'll explain everything to them personally, like they explained to Pakhomych about solfeggio and Oginsky's polonaise. I'll tell you in my own words.
In short, he sings so emotionally and touchingly: like this disappointed guy, and he calls his mom. Mom, he says. That's it, things are worse than ever for me, Mom, you still won't understand how and what, but I've decided to end this life. That's how he sings into the phone.
Well? Can you imagine – to Mom, and such words? Mom there, poor thing, is probably grunting like a raw zegzica, but we can’t see that, we can see his plump, handsome face. And he opens his mouth on this face according to all the rules of the art of singing and continues singing. Like, Mom. Don’t worry. (Eh? How can she not worry, I ask you?). I sent you the money, you’ll have firewood and bread. Well?!! So, he’s hinting – Mom, you only want money from me. Those are the words of a mother?
And he sings on. My decision is final, and I've decided to throw myself under a train. (Here my mother, poor thing, must be completely losing it.) The intensity of passion in his velvety voice is truly heartbreaking, the audience is already shedding tears like from fire hoses, and he forces it on: Mom, I'm calling you from the station, well, Mom, bye, anyway, hi everyone, because there goes the commuter train, I'm off!… And with this intensity of passion, he hangs up.
Well, here he is bowing, the surviving (in the sense of “survived,” not the one you're thinking) audience is applauding, they're carrying bouquets, our Caruso is pushing his black locks of hair back from his clear forehead with a tired gesture and bowing… And I'm watching TV, also, by the way, lying on the couch, and all upset: well, he has baskets of flowers, and how's Mom? You have to understand this.
And then it dawns on me: they're fooling us, the guys, however they want. Just imagine: he sent Mom money for firewood, right? So where's Mom? That's right, in the village. And where the hell is he calling then? Huh? The village council? Can you imagine a hut with a stove and a telephone? Anyone who can imagine that should take a pie from the shelf. Because I can't. Or maybe he popped over to Mom's before that, left her his cell phone and said: wait, Mom, I have something to do, I'll go to the station now and I'll tell you from there. Then we'll talk.
Or here's another song (that's not a mistake, it's spelling error). It's about a poet. Based on the poems of Nikolai Rubtsov. Rubtsov was indeed a great poet, but poetry is one thing, and a song, of course, is quite another. The poem is about a poet: he's sitting there, looking at the stars, thinking about how he can convey his poetic worldview to us (the readers) more adequately. And all around is a village, a river, and all that sort of scenery. And there are these words:
My red flowers
Everything in the kindergarten has withered
A boat on a river shallow
It will soon rot completely
A boat on a river shallow
It will soon rot completely
I'll be there until the night star
Build yourself a boat
It's light in my room
This is from the night star
Mother will take a bucket
Silently bring water
Mother will take a bucket
Silently bring water
The key word here is “silently.” Because it's easier for Mother to bring thirty buckets herself in her old age than to remind this nerd a hundred times.
Sound familiar, right? His flowers have already wilted, his boat has fallen apart, and he's still sitting there. And to make it even more convincing, they made it the refrain of the song—about his mother and her bucket. I can just picture it in oil on bread: him lying in the garden, and his mother making shuttle runs with buckets. She could have created a man-made sea in her lifetime, if not for all the trouble…
What can I say? This is high poetry. This isn't just a 'jaga-jaga', 'usi-pusi', and 'patsaluy minya' (me) everywhere. You have to understand that.
