Rehearsing for new DT CD

By Ruth Ellen Gruber

For the past couple of days I have been in the rural Czech Republic, helping the Czech singer songwriter Robert Krestan of the Czechgrass group Druha Trava rehearse the English language versions of some of his songs for a new, all English language CD -- today we go in to the studio in Prague to begin cutting the tracks. I've never been in a studio for a recording, so it should be an interesting experience..... I did the translations of the songs, and I have to say, they sound good!

Here are the lyrics for the ones that will be on the CD:

Tanecnice (Dancer)


An upturned chair shows the hour has passed
In a night club at the end of care.
The one last dancer in the corner stands
Brushing glitter from her long dark hair.


I'm the last guest, the last glass in my hand;
I'm the last one in this place.
I push back my hat and I look at her,
How she fools the world, with all her paint


Refrain:
Josephina, dance for me, dance the dawning sky
For this undrunk, unfinished night
Ah, dance for me good-bye


She takes her bag, my ballerina;
Just a key and a bottle of beer.
She straightens the chairs and kills the light,
She smiles as she gets out of here.


I open the door, it's early dawn
It leads me down the path outside
Where heaven's morning stars await
The one who has refused to hide.


The north wind’s casting its magic spells
On my beachhead by the sea
When all at once my heart reveals
A naked fantasy


Somewhere in my dream a dancer whirls
Too daring maybe for my soul
I set sail toward the open waves
Just call me Ishmael 

Refrain:
Josephina, dance for me, dance the dawning sky
For this undrunk, unfinished night
Ah, dance for me good-bye


Infiela


Infiela,
Feathers in your touch
Dying, by your side
A hundred times, as much.
A tyrant takes my soul
I'm locked in God's embrace
The Devil calls my name
Eternal sacrifice

Morning, I set sail
From the waters of Cartegena
From the infernal gates of Hell
Grateful, at peace, I come
Morning, I sail away
In darkness diminished to dawn
Oh, beautiful, faithless one,
Infiela!


Infiela,
Weren't we maybe so
Lost in our own world
Countless times and more?
Pure in innocence
Damned in our desire
Gods in nakedness
Human in envy's fire?


Morning, I set sail
From the waters of Cartegena
From the infernal gates of Hell
Grateful, at peace, I come.
Morning, I sail away
In darkness diminished to dawn
Oh, beautiful, faithless one,
Infiela!




Shuttle to Bethlehem (Pendl do Betlema)


I hear nothing, just a barking and a seagull's cry.
Bells are wailing, friars humming, and the crows whiz by
The whistle's sizzling, even kissing you sounds like a slap
Dies irae, and all around the shrieks of pelicans.


Refrain:


But before I disappear, my dumb love,
Let me hitchhike for you while I can.
Today I'm gone, on the shuttle train to Bethl'em,
Maybe soon, a taxi to the promised land.


Your eyes tell me, you got everything you ever asked.
You're driven crazy, by my fear, my nakedness.
My heart is bleeding, the priest slashes with a knife of stone;
Just like you, dear, just like you and you and you alone.


Refrain 

But before I disappear, my dumb love,
Let me hitchhike for you while I can.
Today I'm gone, on the shuttle train to Bethl'em,
Maybe soon, a taxi to the promised land.

When I Take Off My Shoes (Az si jednou sund�m boty)


When you tell me to stop
And then when I take my shoes off
When the smile of the rails
Tells me jump, now, my friend


When my hand becomes hard
As a tile of terracotta
When I sit by my door
Just don't ask to what end.


When the dust from my roads
Cleans the scars upon my forehead
When I learn about things
That are best not to know


When the last of my rhymes
Become idle in my song book
It may well be too late,
The last time, maybe so.


Then when the wind and the rain
Wash the traces from Golgotha
When the smoke from the pyres
In the end fades away


When I take off my belt
And then when I take my shoes off
Nothing's left for me, now
And for you, now, who's to say.

When Death Does Us Apart (Az Nas Smrt Rozdeli)


When horses fly away
To the night, to the gates
Of Jericho
When our embrace dissolves
in the fog, on the shore
When those lips of yours are double-locked
As if I tried to kiss the Gates of Troy
I'm just an outcast soul without a name
Undrunk, unloved, unfull of joy.


When shots of firearms
quiet down
on the streets
down by the bay
When death does us apart
along its blue
waterway;
When the reek of booze clears this nest of doves
And the fortune teller does the same
It’s the end of song, end of love
End of war, end of game.




The Last of the Galleons (Za Posledni Lodi)


The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea
The last of the soldiers had heard his death knell
And a desolate chant from within a stone cloister
Was like one of us bidding farewell


The last of the galleons had sunk into the sea
And like night-flying bats the wind ruffled the shore
And a brave young musician chimed chords on an organ,
Jeremiah's his name evermore


The last ship had sunk, and I rushed to a place
Where the turning flood tide left me armor from Spain,
A sack of pesetas, some yellowing letters;
Stark memories and, unfathomed pain