I Just Sing
- The Children's Races 3:12
- Hide-and-Seek 2:10
- It Happened to An Angel 3:27
- Autumn 3:04
- Drifting 2:08
- You Haven't Got Much Time 2:40
- For the Fourth Time 3:25
- Illiterate 2:10
- Lady Godiva 2:18
- Strange Hamlet 3:38
- Fish Tears 4:28
- You're Under a Spell 2:29
- Shadow Theatre 3:02
- I Just Sing 3:48
- Partly Sunny 2:43
- African Sadness 3:25
- A Pre-Christmas Carol 3:23
- Stay in My Head 2:31
- The Quietist 3:30
- And Maybe a Little Dog 3:01
- Blues for The Creditor 2:07
Words, Music Voice and Piano by JAN BURIAN (Except Drifting a Stay in My Head (Music by Randy Newman), Strange Hamlet (Music by Vladimír Mišík) a A Pre-Christmas Carol (Music by Petr Skoumal)
Recorded in Studio R+R, Prague, 1996-97
Engineer: Petr Mayer
Mastering: Studio Svengali, Prague
Art Director: Bohuslav Šír
Photography and Jacket Design: Miro Švolík
Mr. Burian's wardrobe by Alexandra Švolíková
Translation from the Czech: Derek Paton
Special thanks to Karel Prokeš, Jan Wrána and Pavel Klusák for their constructive criticism, and to Petr Mayer for inspirational ideas and patience in their realization.
Someone secretly
Cut off your two plaits
But it doesn't bother you much
But 'cause I'm sad
I am going to shoot myself in the head
With a water-pistol
The schooner's shipwrecked in the old tub
The tin soldiers have laid down their arms
Somehow two rocking horses
Just aren't coming back
From the last children's races
Out of what's left of the construction site
I'm building an addition
On to my sublet flat
You've become Queen
Of the blinking dolls
So I'm going to rent it out to you
The schooner's shipwrecked in the old tub
The tin soldiers have laid down their arms
But I'm not bored
Tomorrow I'll wake up
With a Barbie doll in my bed
We've been playing hide-and-seek
for ten twenty thirty days
So we're never together
It's an eccentric little game
I wait in vain with a gladiolus
Whisper to you in vain `I love you'
Before hide-and-seek, after hide-and-seek
Olly-olly-um-free
And so I furiously count down
And suddenly your `it'
It's hard as hell to find you
You always disappear godknowswhere
We'll look for each other forever
Each of us has known that for a long time
I'll go hide with another young lady
And you'll hide with another young man
I wait in vain with a gladiolus
Whisper to you in vain that I love you
Before hide-and-seek, after hide-and-seek
Olly-olly-um-free
It happened to an angel
He fell in a slow rhythm
And you saw him
With a smashed up hang-glider
It happened to an angel
A messenger from on high
And you saw him
In the ambulance that went roaring by
You first knew
Above all and most importantly
That if it can happen to an angel
It can happen to anyone
Back then you said, Oh God!
Today I won't go and see a film
Which was a clear indication
That you lack structure in your life
Now when you see an angel
Flying with the Friends of the Armed Forces
- You've been a big girl for quite some time now -
You're sure to take a peek
So we blame it on autumn
When we drift far apart
When we each dream alone
About the rope and the hook
So we blame it on the leaves
When our words all run dry
I hope nobody else finds out
That we won't give it another try
So we blame it on the puddles
When we drown
In the foolishness for which
Lovers never ever long
So we blame it on the wind
When we burn out like candles
Then we go to raise a pint
And come up with clever puns
So we blame it on the fog
When we don't want to look for each other any more
On the rain and the grey sky
We blame it all so easily
So we blame it on the frost
When our hands grow cold
When our kisses are insults
Which taste only of salt
I never drink while on the job
Out of principle always turn it down
Maybe just a touch of rum
I can live with that
On the way back home from work
I usually stop in for a glass of wine
Time's a-flying and I'm standing still
My shop is closed for the night
Drifting, drifting
For years I've had no goal
Drifting, drifting
Everyday a little more
I used to read the whole night through
Afraid to waste a minute
Was the kind who wanted to change the world
But the world's changed those in it
Now I'm O.K. - my job ends at five
I couldn't ask for much more
Maybe now and then a shot of rum
I can live with that
Drifting, drifting
For years I've had no goal
Drifting, drifting
Everyday a little more
You're like a paper flower
Don't wilt, have no fragrance
Haven't got much time to believe
Though there's no one pressing you
You're a sun that doesn't burn
On a travel advertisement
You look at the world from afar
Haven't got much time for love
You're a snow flake that doesn't freeze
Behind the Christmas shop windows
Haven't got much time for yourself
But haven't got anybody else
And so you've got less of everything
Than anyone could ever imagine
Life is a cave full of stalactites
Nothing but shadows and damp
The horizon is now bathed in blood
The sun has long gone
I take you for the first time
The show of stars has begun
Confetti and gold ribbons
Meteors and comet tails
I take you for the second time
It's like a flamethrower's blaze
The sun shines into the living room
Rising up hot, straight from Hell
I take you for a third time
So you don't escape my spell
I take you for a fourth time
But only in my dreams do you return
Morning - the gentle hint of death
The sun crashes back to Earth
And what if
Those who have long been dead
Wanted to leave me a sign?
I don't understand
The old inscriptions
It's all just stone to me
I continue walking by the wall
Don't see, though I'm looking
I sense a mystery
But nothing more
I'm illiterate
I run away
From the magic of stories
I keep running along the wall
But can't outrun time
I try to write a message
But raise my hands in vain...
Why has she disrobed, why is
This naked lady, sitting on a horse?
What on earth is she looking for?
Not at all like the Madonna
The power of the breast, a flag with a wedge
Today she'll conquer the city
And the Moon behind the chimney
Whispers: Lady Godiva!
The most beautiful woman in the world
Has cast off her blouse
The naked truth, the bare facts
Will rule at least for a while
In the morning through the curtains round the bed
The King arrives wrapped in a flag with a wedge
The churches begin to cast shadows
Everything will again be as it was
Strange Hamlet
He's walking on the spot, mumbling
That all the world's a stage
Maybe he's lost his memory
He no longer asks about anything
Just gropes in the labyrinth of the word
From the trap-door screams the furious prompter
In the box seats the theatre critics pass out
Back-stage Ophelia wails in hysterics
The grey-haired manager predicts his own demise
But most of the audience remains calm
Those in the dark think this is how it was meant
Hamlet's amazed
At the situation that's arisen
But doesn't watch for long
He gets by with a sense
for improvisation
Even without Shakespeare's help
He gets straight to the point - he tears off his collar
Juggles a skull, whose jaws dully clatter
He begins phase two with a joke that's lewd
Tears up the wings and falls into a swoon
He can get away with all of that now
Those in the dark think this is how it was meant
The audience applauds
Someone shouts out: Hurrah!
What a marvellous production!
The great Hamlet
Bows to the house
And can't contain his emotions
Regaining his memory, the actor raises his head
And asks the enthusiastic crowd
In a puppet's voice:
What's the time? That is the question!
What's the time? That is the question!
My psychiatrist coolly remarks
That I am currently under stress
But I tend to think that I've hit rock bottom
I'm becoming a fish, silently unobtrusive
And that's a feeling I really can't bear
My psychiatrist says: Things'll work out
He's forcing me to take pills to calm my nerves
But I want to jump into the river
And begin to swim over dams and weirs
Like a sardine escaping from the tin
I want to quench my thirst with drops of rain
And give red lipstick kisses to the roses
I want to tell the yeti, `Yet again!'
And the woodruff, `That's enough!'
My shrink says that I drink too much
You say, short and sweet, that I'm nuts
I beg to live with you a few Fridays more
You keep me in your fish bowl
Catch me in your made-up eyes
Neither seems to see
You just don't know about fish tears
When it comes to what a fish feels you're so uncaring
When there's static on the telephone lines
Or when he becomes a pickled herring
You're under a spell
I'm trying in vain
With the magic wand
Of memories
Ever since the summer
I've longed to revive
Upon the bare rocks
A little fire
But there's a lot of imitation in my magic
For instance I'd regret having to kill the cat
And so my cure for exorcism
Has shrunk into a stupid tear in my sweet little eye
Instead of mandrake roots, it's bull's blood
Clove, cinnamon and fire
In the dark I recite to you The Nocturnal Fish Song
I smoke like the local distillery
You're under a spell
And I'm stoking the furnace
Between your sweet knees
Ever since the summer
I've longed to revive
Upon the bare rocks
A little fire
Shadow theatre on the wallpaper
The sun's sneaked out and you're afraid
What's come over you?
The sun hasn't fallen
In the morning it'll sweep away the star dust again
Morning comes, clears the horror from the sky
And dresses it in azure
What's come over you
Is only theatre
Shadow theatre - a cosmic gala ball
The morning will paint the streaks out of the nebulae
And so for a moment free us of the fetters
What's come over you?
The sun hasn't fallen
It's just that they've cut the power somewhere up in heaven
At the academic conference
At the great big table
It was said that birds
Fall from Heaven
For a long time I've been watching birds falling
From heavenly heights
They zig-zag through the air
With bands on their claws
When stripped of my immunity
and returning from my walk
Birds are falling, idols are falling
Remarks are being dropped
Everything that has feathers falls
I don't do anything
Just sing, just sing
With my smoker's lungs
At the academic conference
There passed out a docent
We register his name in our records
Where his sort makes up ten per cent
With a farmer's almanac
A cigarette in a tornado
I turn to the astronomer
Sit for hours at the fortune-teller's table
It'll be partly sunny again
It'll again be like it is now
All my senses are astounded
Such a ridiculous prediction
Partly sunny - partly cloudy
Part ridiculous - part ennui
And you'll be half with me
Till I partly abandon you
Others might hardly say a word
But I'll always be the same
I want to hear a precise report
A direct blow of fate
It'll be partly sunny again
Parboiled, half-time
And then one day the stars will burn out
Half early and half on time
One of my friends is a Negro
Black as Darkest Africa
Sometimes he's overcome with sadness
Sadness like an African desert
But he's hard on himself
Hard as ivory
He hangs his camera round his neck
And heads out to Charles Bridge
He pretends he doesn't speak Czech
And asks directions in English
Such as how to get down to the U Fleků pub
Or up to Prague Castle
A crowd gathers round him
The whole white tribe
The chief, the warrior, the shaman
Perhaps even some savage women
They talk to him in the language of their fathers
Make faces, grimaces and gestures
What do you expect from the natives
In Prague, Mother of Cities
And that friend of mine, the Negro
Black as a coal bin
He eventually gets over his sadness
And soon begins to laugh
Christmas is coming again
Everybody's facing the same problem
Of how to get their hands at least
On the Star of Bethlehem
Of how to break through the lines
And find what can't be found
Christmas is coming again
Those holidays of oblivion
Christmas is coming again
Those holidays of bankbooks
The crowd will find Christ
And take him down from the cross
He'll become a supermodel
Just right for the shop windows
And circling over it all
Will be well-heeled cherubims
Christmas is coming again
It's hard to go against the current
The doors have closed
But who'll be sorry now?
A pregnant Mary
Squeezes her way through the Metro
I fear my love
She might miscarry
I can't get you out of my head, just can't
So you'll stay their forever
Nothing bad will happen to you
We can chat and sleep there together
It'll be better than going to the housing estate
Only thing haunting my head is a weary spirit
Occasionally you'll meet a lost tick
Apart from that the tourist trade is dead
You'll become the queen of my cortex
And the supreme court judge of my internal constatations
You'd last for a month at most
At the Ministry of Neuro-Telecommunications
I've saved a place for you for a whole year
It has so many beautiful views
In my head you meet nothing but wonderful nutters
We've got a good team through and through
The gods talk
Man doesn't hear
Of everything in the world
They are the quietist
Unnecessarily clandestinely
I kneel in gardens
What if they're just whispering
In a mysterious jargon?
There's crackling in the ether
I grab the headphones
Vainly turn back
the dial
What if the signal
Is jammed by the jammers
We are too confused
Noisy and deaf
And maybe babysit the neighbour's children
And maybe bring the old folks their lunch
And maybe believe in the tv dreams
And maybe go nowhere on Friday
And maybe bring the coal up the stairs
Wait for the forecast on the radio
And maybe clean up just for the feeling
that all the grey in the flat will disappear with the dust
And maybe covertly read the adverts
But to answer them would only be indecent
Perhaps take in a little dog
A little dog - but never again another person
Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I sing to myself
A few suspect lines
About how I borrowed a bit of air
And also the whole wide world
I sing to myself that it doesn't pay
To run this deeply into debt
That it then becomes hard to pay back
And God knows who the creditor is
Sometimes, under my breath, I sing to myself
(When I am afraid of the dark shadows)
That I'll repay this loan as agreed
And most likely in hard times