زياد الرحباني - يا نور عنيا

Thread: زياد الرحباني - يا نور عنيا

Tags: joseph saqr, ya noor eyneya, ziad rahbani
  1. Summar Alsemeiry said:

    Default زياد الرحباني - يا نور عنيا

    Hello everyone! I would really appreciate a translation of this song. I tried to translate "كنا نغني عالقراصية" as, "We used to sing about prunes..." and for some odd reason, it didn't make sense. It seems to be a very idiomatic song. Thank you for any help!

    يانور عينية...
    رحنا ضحية ....
    ضحية الحركة الثورية....
    كنا في أحلى الفنادق
    جرجرونا عالخنادق وشكلنا ليس بلائق
    قبل ما جيت يا عفريت كنا نغني عالقراصية
    هالقراصية منين منين والله سقوها بدمع العين
    يا عيني عيني ملا تنين والله رحنا ضحية
    يانور عينيا
    يا قراصية
    يا من تهدد بالروشيشي
    بكل أنواع الفتيشي
    طالبن تحسين عيشي
    ثائر حار يأكل النار
    ونحن من
    آه مزيكاتية مزيكاتية
    Last edited by Summar Alsemeiry; 07-25-2016 at 09:22 PM.
     
  2. Summar Alsemeiry said:

    Default

    Hi all. So I've figured out more of this song, including the part concerning the قراصية (prunes). The sour prunes are a trope of Aleppan classical music, used in love songs. This whole song is laced with Arabic love song language, like light of my eye. And it’s somewhat ironic, since this is about a victims of a violent revolution and not the fake emotion of a musician. There is even rhyming, like in Arabic love songs, like when he rhymes “hotels” with “trenches.”
    This song is from Happiness Hotel (Nazl As-sarour). Two revolutionaries have taken the residents of a hotel hostage and give everyone until morning to agree to subscribe to their views. Everyone, that is, except the musicians, who the revolutionaries see as the “opium of society”. They have until the middle of the night to submit a revolutionary anthem (a nasheed) to prove their worth. This song is all they manage to come up with…and they forget it when their captors come back. It’s strange that a couple of feckless musicians, who lay about all day and play love songs, create one of the grittiest and impassioned moments in the play.
    This song has even more resonance than in 1974. The use of an Aleppan motif has made this very resonant with some Syrian refugees.
    This translation is pretty rough and may not be entirely accurate. Feel free to correct me!

    يانور عينية
    Oh light of my eye
    رحنا ضحية
    we fell victim to...
    ضحية الحركة الثورية
    …victim to the revolutionary movement

    كنا في أحلى الفنادق
    We used to be in the nicest hotels
    جرجرونا عالخنادق
    we shuffled off into the trenches
    وشكلنا ليس بلائق
    And we didn’t fit in.
    قبل ما جيت يا عفريت
    Before you came, oh demon,
    كنا نغني عالقراصية
    we used to sing…about sour prunes*
    هالقراصية منين منين والله سقوها بدمع العين**
    Whose sour prunes are these? whose? I swear to god, it brought tears to my eyes.

    يا عيني عيني ملا تنين ***
    Oh my eye, my eye filled with (all that is) precious...
    والله رحنا ضحية
    …we really fell victim--
    يانور عينيا
    Oh light of my eye
    يا قراصية
    oh sour prunes
    يا من تهدد بالروشيشي
    Oh you who threaten us with automatic weapons
    بكل أنواع الفتيشي
    with every type of bomb,
    طالباً تحسين عيشِ
    who demand improvement to life:
    ثائر حار
    A hot revolutionary
    ياكل النار
    consumes the fires of hell
    ثائر حار ياكل النار ونحن من.. أه.. مزيكاتية.. مزيكاتية مزيكاتية مزيكاتية
    A hot revolutionary eats the fires of hell and we are from…yes…Mazikatiya...Mazikatiya, etc.
    I have no idea what Mazikatiya refers to.
    Last edited by Summar Alsemeiry; 07-26-2016 at 12:38 PM.