Нарисуйте мне дом... [Narisuyte mne dom...] [English translation]

Paint a house for me,

A house to suit me well!

Better make it diamond1

Show me a place in that house where I could fall asleep,

And where the trumpets of the messengers won't wake me up.2

Paint a house for me,

A house to live in,

A house where they would let me live as I wish.

Where, being tired in battles, I'd be restoring my strength,

Where nobody would ever sting me.

I would do it myself, I would do it myself,

But I'm afraid I'm not fit to do it,

I search and can't find

Those undertints.

I keep riding a horse, riding it across impenetrable forests,

And I keep waking up in cold sweat after a day of being asleep.

Paint a hearth for me, even on a crass canvass,

On a brick wall, but draw it so that I could feel warm air moving,

Paint it so that my fist would crackle,

So that one day warmth would start blowing off my cold eyelashes.

I would do it myself, I would do it myself,

But I don't have those cherished paints,

I only know two of them, I squeeze them in my hand.

The line I make either turns out to be white or black as soot,

I'd like to retouch it with blue, but I don't have such a water color.

Paint me, make me outrageously beautiful and strong,

Paint me so that my mother wouldn't be afraid for her son.

Draw me being a stork for just one moment,

I want to look at people from the altitude where a flock of storks flies.

I would do it myself, I would do it myself,

But my brushes break,

Only a guitar neck can survive the revolt of my fingers,

And the sheets with notes fly, fly, fly into the sky,

They raise up to the clouds,

Those bitter notes that flew off the torn strings of my guitar.

1. i.e. of diamond suit, as in cards2. on the Judgement Day

• Artist:Alexander Rozenbaum
• Album:Друг OST (1987)