Polina Gagarina – Obezoruzhena

Элджей continues to dominate the TopHit.ru charts, the subject of my last blog entry, Сергей Лазарев climbed up one spot to number 2 and Время и Стекло are holding strong at number 3. If you’d like to read about those songs, please click on those artists’ names to check out my other blog posts on them!

This week, I bring to you the number 4 song for the week of December 4th to December 10, 2017 which is Обезоружена (Obezoruzhena) by Полина Гагарина (Polina Gagarina). This has been a good year, I guess, for Ms. Gagarina as she has done well on the Russian music charts ever since I started blogging about music. This is my second blog post about one of her songs in 3 months!

If you like my introductions of the singers, I encourage you to visit my first blog post about Gagarina for her song “Драмы больше нет” that I wrote back in September. That song is a triumphant break-up song, which is a lot of fun.

This song is decidedly a different subject matter. It’s most certainly about being very much in love. The song doesn’t have an official video yet but, according to TopHit.ru, it was played on the radio 35,233 times and viewed on YouTube 226,946 times during that week (12/4 to 12/10). So, the YouTube link below isn’t official.

Also, I am still experimenting with the format, so I wanted to try something else again. Since I wanted a focus of this blog to be about learning vocabulary through media, I put my new words next and you can read my review at the end. Feedback would be great if you have an opinion.

Words I learned from the song

This song had quite a few unfamiliar words for me, which was a good learning opportunity! As usual, I was able to find the lyrics with a side-by-side translation done by a member of the community by visiting the Lyrics Translate website. Here they are:

Справиться – To manage, cope, pull off

When I saw this word in the lyrics of the song, I sort of knew because it has the word править as a root, which means “to correct” among other things. So, when it has the reflexive verb ending “ся”, I think “make myself right” or something.

Then I saw the line as it appears in the first verse: “Мне одной теперь не справиться” which can be translated as “I can’t manage (this) alone anymore”. I hesitate to say she’s talking about complete dependence on the subject of the song but maybe that feeling like you can’t live without the other person.

Тянуть – To pull, draw in, attract

This new vocabulary word appears in the pre-chorus right before the chorus starts: “Что к тебе тянет, будто магнитом / Ни для кого уже не секрет.” These lines together can be translated as “The thing that draws me to you like a magnet / Is no secret to anyone.”

A line like this is powerful in that it’s something that makes you very vulnerable if you say it. I like the sentiment.

Обезоружить – To disarm, put out of commission

This, of course, is the name of the song. Also, it’s the first line of the chorus: “Я обезоружена” which we can translate as “I am disarmed”. Actually, to go over how we can figure out what it means, we can look at the parts:

The prefix: “вез” is also a preposition meaning “without”. “Оружие” is Russian for “weapon”. So they have the combination of “without” + “weapon” + make it a verb. Knowing your roots and affixes really helps build your vocabulary!

Хрупкий – Brittle, fragile, frail, breakable

Уберечь – To save, protect, insure against

I put these two previously unknown words (for me) together because they are connected in the song. These lines appear together: Сердце, словно хрупкое стекло / Ты, пожалуйста, его убереги.” I translated these lines as “My heart is as fragile as glass / (You) Please protect it.”

I feel like this is a really relatable line in the song. People fall into and out of love. If you do it many times, it may feel very difficult.

Review

I will start with the negative stuff so I can end on a positive note. To be honest, I think it’s not a very interesting song in a musical sense.  One thing I noticed, which happens with a lot of bands and musicians, is a formula for how Polina Gagarina’s songs are written. I don’t know if she writes her own material or not but, after I heard the song for the third time, I decided to listen to “Драмы больше нет” again just to check my suspicions.

It turns out I was right. It has the exact same song structure. Now, as a musician myself, I have been guilty of formulaic song-writing and it’s something lot of people do and are quite successful. I noticed that both “Обезоружена” and “Драмы больше нет” have the following structure:

Verse -> Pre-chorus -> Chorus -> Verse -> Pre-chorus -> Chorus -> Softer chorus for a “bridge” -> Chorus

It’s a very standard structure and you can’t fault the song writer for it but it’s also not that interesting and I suspect this song won’t have much staying power. See if you can also hear it.

On the positive side, Polina Gagarina has an amazing voice. She’s a great singer and carries the song well. Also, I like the contrast between the verse and chorus parts of the song. The verse tended to be quieter and the chorus louder, which is also very predictable, but I think that difference in dynamics helped the song be more interesting and added energy.

Lastly, I think that the chorus is very fun to sing along to. It’s very emotional so you can do it sincerely or ironically at your pleasure.

Sergey Lazarev – Tak krasivo

Introduction

Элдзей is holding strong at number 1 and Время и Стекло is solidly in the number 2 spot according to TopHit.ru for the week of November 27^th to December 3, 2017. Please follow the links on those artists’ names if you’d like to read my reviews of their songs. This week though, we are going to take a look at the number 3 song for that week: “Так красиво” (Tak krasivo) by Сергей Лазарев (Sergey Lazarev)!

Looking at Sergey Lazarev’s Wikipedia page, it looks like he’s been involved with the music industry in Russia since the early 2000’s so I was wracking my brain to think about whether I had heard some of his previous songs because that’s when I started learning Russian. His first foray into the music industry was in the group Smash!! (yes, the exclamation points are part of the name), which came out in 2002. He worked with Vladislav Topalov and they sang in English. Check out their first single by following this link.

Looking through the most popular songs he’s come out with, I found a couple that were familiar to me. The earliest one I remember is from 2009 called “Найди меня”. His single “Нереальная любовь” from 2012 I think is the song of Sergey’s that I am most familiar with. He seems like an established pop artist like Dima Bilan and Ёлка, whom I have reviewed before.

Review

I think what makes this special is the music video and the sentiment of the song as played out there as opposed to the actual music. Musically, the song isn’t that interesting and the lyrics are fairly repetitive. It mostly stays the same throughout except for a part towards the end when he’s repeating the chorus (again) and his voice gets a lot more intense at around 3:18 in the video and then calms down again.

Because of that, I want to focus on the video. I thought that the beginning is really nice with the message that “Real love is so beautiful” over a black background. Also, in the lower right corner before the video truly begins, there is a note that says all the couples in the music video are real, which I think adds a lot of meaning to it.

This adds meaning because there is such a variety of couples and families represented in the music video which makes it beautiful in sentiment and visuals. There were young people, old people, mixed race couples, midgets, and lesbians. It was interesting to me that they chose not to have any gay men but gay women were ok. Considering Putin’s policies and attitudes regarding gay men, maybe that shouldn’t be terribly surprising.

Sometimes the scenes with the people are happy, sad, romantic, funny, etc. I think that really is a nice way to visually capture the sentiment of the song. The lyrics aren’t bad as far as I’m concerned although maybe as a non-native speaker, the cheesiness is lost on me.

Words I learned from the lyrics

This song’s music video has been out since September 28^th of this year (2017), so it was no trouble to find them at my usual site – Lyrics Translate. I just want to mention that this site has been quite useful for me because they have community created translations of the lyrics for several languages. It’s nice to see it side by side first and then look a little deeper at some of the words that really were new to me.

This particular song had 5 words that I was unsure about. They all describe love in a certain way, which were very special, cool, and relatable if you have been in love before. Here are the words I wanted to highlight:

Издавать – to emit, utter, make (a sound)

This is the first line of the song: “Твоя любовь издавала звуки / Похожие на шум океана” which can be translated as “Your love made sounds / Like the crashing of the ocean”. This line is actually kind of cool because it mixes and contrasts the word звук and шум, which both mean sound but the second one is more like a big sound. It makes love sound like a force of nature.

Прижимать – to press to, nestle, snuggle, hug

The lines right after what’s above are: “Твоя любовь прижимала к сердцу / Так тихо-тихо и не отпускала” which I will translate as “Your love nestled me to your heart / So quiet and calm, not letting go”. I know another word for “hug” which is обнимать, so it’s fun to know another word which is a different shade of a similar word.

Такт – beat, time, bar, cycle

This line is part of the chorus: “Твоя любовь этих тактов сила” and it’s a little confusing for me to translate. I think it’s because it’s in genitive case and I can’t figure out what it’s attached to but on the lyrics translate site, it was translated as “Your love’s strong in measures” and “Your love is these strong beats”. I think both of those could work but I like the second one a bit more since I think it’s referring to the strong, steady bass drum beat during that part of the song. If anyone can help me with this line, I would be so appreciative!

Доводить – to drive someone crazy

This line is also part of the chorus: “Твоя любовь меня доводила” which can be translated maybe as “Your love has driven me crazy”. When I looked this word up, it also can mean to lead someone somewhere, which I already knew but it’s fun to learn another usage. This is a pretty common way of describing love, isn’t it?

Прикасаться – to touch, contact

This line is in the second verse: Твоя любовь прикасаясь к телу / Меняла время на запах кожи” which can be translated as “Your love, touching my body, / Turned time into the smell of (your) skin”. This verb is similar to касаться which I found as a new vocabulary word last week. It’s great to see it again and with a prefix this time!

If you made it to the end, I want to treat to you something really funny. Follow this link to a video of “Lazerboy” by Sergey Lazarev. What the heck? Let me know what you think.

Yolka – Mir otkryvaetsa

Introduction

This week, I am going to try something a little different with the format and organization of my song review. Please let me know if you think it’s better or worse than before, I always like feedback. Also, I want to thank everyone who has come to visit my blog for making November my highest traffic month yet!

In any case, according to TopHit.ru, I have already reviewed the top 3 songs: “Розовое вино” (#1), “Тролль” (#2) and “Улети” (#3). So, I will be discussing the #4 song again this week, which happens to be Мир открывается (The world opens up) by Ёлка (Yolka).

Yolka, according to her Wikipedia page, is from Uzhgorod, Ukraine which looks like it’s right on the border with Slovakia. Her first major release was in 2004, when she came out with the album “Город Обмана” (City of lies/deception). I think my first encounter with one of her songs was between 2010 and 2012 when I heard a couple of her most successful songs “Прованс” (Provence) and “Около тебя” (Near you).  Both of these songs won the Golden Gramophone awards in 2011 and 2012 respectively.

My favorite song by Yolka is “Provence”. The bass line is super cool and slick with the frequent slides. Plus it’s also got a fun message of looking forward to a vacation to the Provence region of France – nothing terribly profound! It’s also upbeat and playful. But wait, this isn’t a review of “Provence”! This is a review of “Mir otkryvaetsa”!

Review

I turned on the music video and, I don’t know if this is just a big trend in Russian music videos lately or what, but there’s another super long intro. It takes 30 seconds into the music video before you hear the opening guitar. The guitar sounds good and it’s great that the song gets started real fast. You don’t even hear the first full chord progression before Yolka adds her voice “Когда рядом ты” (When you’re near), she sings.

This is a great start but also where things get confusing for me. So, it seems like in the video there’s a support group for young people. Yolka seems like she’s lecturing them or something. For me, the video just doesn’t match what the song is about.

Maybe Yolka and the producer are showing us the effects of her music? I am trying to be charitable but the connection between the music video and the lyrics of the song simply didn’t line up. If you just look at the title of the song “Мир отрывается” (The world opens up), I can kind of see how the support group for youth where you encourage them fits. The problem is when you look at the rest of the lyrics.

The verse makes it even more obvious but the first two lines of the chorus are: “Мир отркрывается для нас двоих / Возьми меня за руку, веди меня по волнам” which we can translate as “The world opens up for the two of us / Take my hand, lead me through the waves”. This suggests more of a love song for Yolka herself rather than what we see in the music video.

The song is about being in love and how you feel like anything is possible when you fall in love with someone. One particularly tender part from the second verse goes, “Много того, что разделим стобой я и ты / Ведь мы так похожи и ты меня слышишь” which can be translated as “There are many things that I will share with you / Because we’re quite alike and you understand me”.  Or we can take a line from the first verse: “Ты улыбаешься мне, ты касаешься моей души / И мне не страшно, другое не важно” which can be translated as “You smile at me, you touch my soul / And I’m not scared, nothing else matters.”

These two examples really make the song feel like more of a love song and I simply do not get the choice of the music video director to make the video like this. It is an inspirational way to think about it and I really like the sentiment of the lyrics but it doesn’t fit with the video if you ask me. According to the Wikipedia page, Yolka is 35 now. Is that considered too old? She can’t be the person falling in love?

Ultimately, the song itself is ok. It isn’t that memorable but I really like the lyrics and the feeling behind them. They are very relatable if you’ve been in love, are in love or want to be, which I feel like that is most people.

Words I learned from the lyrics

Please follow this link to the lyrics website page I usually use if you’d like to see a side by side Russian and English version of the song. This song had only a few of words I wasn’t so sure about.

Касаться – to concern, touch, be about, deal with

This word appears in the second quote I wrote above from the first verse. I had heard this word before in a Zveri song but I think I misheard it as казаться (to seem) for the longest time, so it’s great to get this straightened out.

Растворяться – to dissolve, decompose

This word appears in the first line of the second verse: “Всё растворяется, но не меняются твои черты” which can be translated as “Everything decays, but your features do not change”. Looking at the definitions, it seems like this is a relatively science-y word…

What do you think about this song or the music video? What words were new to you?