Strövtåg i hembygden [English translation]

There's shimmer in the clouds and glitter in the lake

there's light over shores and isthmuses*

and around me the lovely forest stands green

behind the swaying grass of the meadows

And with summer and beauty and chords of the forest wind

my homeland stands and greets me, happy

greetings! but where is my father's farm

there is nothing behind the row of maples

It is empty, it is brunt, it is ravaged and barren

where it used to be, the bedrock lays bare

but over it the memory walks with the wind so cool

and that memory is all that is left

And it is I who saw a white gable

and an open window inside

it sounded like piano and a cheerful part

of a song with a pretty melody

And it is as if it were my father's voice

when he was still happy and young

before the song became quiet in his sick chest

and his existence became sad and heavy

It is empty, it is brunt, I want to lie down

by the lake to hear his speech

about the old, about what passed, while time went on

about the old in Alstern's valley

And he says his sad and rippled answer

as weakly as if it were dreamt:

"It was thrown to the wind twenty long years ago,

it is dead and buried and forgotten

Where you remember dear figures and visions

emptiness now stands, deserted and barren

and my eternal lullaby is all there is left

of the old in Alstern's valley"

• Artist:Mando Diao