BAJM - Już bez ciebie - (PL>>EN)

Artist: BAJM
Song: "Już bez ciebie" / "Only Without You"
Music: Jarosław Kozidrak
Lyrics: Beata Kozidrak
Album: "Płomień z nieba" / "A Flame From The Sky" (1993)

Dedicated to: those that made me feel...



Wczorajszy dzień nie wróci już
Yesterday won't come back again

Jak żadna podła chwila, której nie chce Bóg
Just like any lousy moment that (even) God wouldn't want

I cieszą się wszyscy święci
And all the Saints are rejoicing


Wciąga mnie ludzi tłum
I'm dragged by people's crowd

I jestem blisko nich i tulę się do ich głów
And I'm close to them and I cuddle myself to their heads

Choć czuję że jestem inna
Though I still feel that I'm different


Bez Ciebie nie jestem już uniesieniem
Without you I'm no longer in rapture

Bez Ciebie porywa mnie sen
Without you I'm carried off by sleep

Dokąd, nie wiem
Where to? I don't know


Kawy łyk i wstaje świt
A sip of coffee and the dawn is waking up

Tak boję się tych jasnych ramion myśli złych
I'm so afraid of those bright arms of bad thoughts

I nie wiem jak mam zapomnieć (jak)
And I don't know how to forget (how)


Nie pozwól mi być byle kim
Don't let me be just anybody

Rozpalać i gasić, unosić
(Don't let me) Light up and put out the flames, go up

Bym w końcu opadła bez sił
To get down nerveless in the end

Bo jestem wciąż taka naiwna
'Cos I am still so naive


Bez Ciebie nie jestem już uniesieniem
Without you I'm no longer in rapture

Bez Ciebie porywa mnie sen
Without you I'm carried off by sleep

Dokąd, nie wiem
Where to? I don't know

Bez Ciebie nie jestem już uniesieniem
Without you I'm no longer in rapture

Bez Ciebie porywa mnie sen
Without you I'm carried off by sleep

I uciekam w niebieskie przestrzenie
And I run away into the blue skies

Już bez Ciebie
Only without you

Another beautiful song and translation. Those regretful lyrics make a very beautiful combination with the voice and the melody.

I haven't known this artist and I should thank you for introducing us to this masterpiece. I'm also so in love with "Przyjaciel" / "A Friend" which you have dedicated to me.

Mamnoonam doostam!
My pleasure.
Bless you!

After almost three decades, Bajm continues to inspire with its catchy poetic lyrics and original melodies. However, my favorite creation by this band still remains "Nie ma wody na pustyni" (There is no water in the desert) from its punk phase, which was a metaphor about getting drunk and a subsequent hangover. When you're drunk, you feel thirsty like you were walking through a hot desert deprived of any water. You also walk like a zombie as if trecking dehydrated and exhausted through a parched desert. Hence ironically, the superficial imagery presented in this song is anything but cool. Pustynia = desert or emptiness, here the double meaning of this term implies and envokes the inner emptiness that you feel when you're drunk. This song and its video are a work of genius.

Hunta!

Thanks a lot, Peter, for your comment!

Your interpretation of "Nie ma wody na pustyni" is surely one of the possible ways to read the lyrics. Maybe you could translate it for the ATL public one day?

But since this song was released in 1983, in the one of the bleakest and greyest periods of the Polish history, soon after the martial law had been lifted, it was also interpreted in this very political context.

And thus the title desert was widely associated with the communist Poland and the water was a metaphor for freedom.

This metaphoric line was somehow continued on their next record, titled also very symbolically "Martwa woda" - "Lifeless (Dead) water"

Sorry, just wanted to recap. I doubt there exists a loose correlation b/w BAJM's "No water in the desert", and Nena's "99 Red Baloons" where the latter definitely carries a political message, although I could be wrong about what the BAJM's motivation were, since it did release some songs with political lyrics in 1985-6. It's tempting to think that both hits had some political motivation, since they came out in 1984, that same year when the movie "1984" was released, based on Orwell's classic novel "1984". Ironically, there was a Polish movie made that same year called the "Sex Mission" (Seksmisja) that was anti-establishment, paid tribute to Orwell's book, but was more accurately a remake of THX 1138. Of the post-apocalyptic anti-establishment genre of flicks, I especially love the "Tank Girl", based on a comic book, but with an excellent storyline and soundrack. One should also mention "Man and his dog" which inspired the highly successful "Fallout" series of epic-type games. The Book of Eli was just a spoof of all the garbage that comes out of Hollywood nowadays which centers on slashers, gender wars, and all the predictible cheese called the date movies that all follow a predetermined pattern - Hook-up, break-up, and make-up. Personally, I began re-examining some of the Polish pop and flicks only recently, as there isn't much in the current pop-culture that captivates my interest, well, with some notable exceptions including the Primal Scream (i.e. Dolls), Airborn or Raizz. Of the anti-establishment hymns, the best ones must still be "Cult of Personality" by Living Color and "We don't need no education" by Pink Floyd.


Pete

Moreover, from what I've read on the internet (not always a reliable source), the widely shared opinion is that "No water in the desert" is a song with an easy-going theme about a hangover.

And to state it more correctly, Sexmission combined the plot of THX 1138 with the hilarity of John Carpenter's "Dark Star".

Bajm-Biala Armia

To Twoja flaga, nasz młody przyjacielu
Nie musisz kochać jej barw, o nie
To Twoja armia i życie w ciągłym biegu
Nigdy nie będziesz już sam
Możesz wreszcie zachłysnąć się powietrzem
I unieść do góry jak ptak, he-hej
Możesz wreszcie zabłądzić w wielkim mieście
Urodziłeś się, by służyć nam

Właśnie nadszedł ten czas
Whoah, to jest właśnie ten czas

JESTEŚ STEREM, BIAŁYM ŻOŁNIERZEM
NOSISZ SPODNIE, WIĘC WALCZ
JESTEŚ ŻAGLEM, SZALONYM WIATREM
TWOJA SIŁA TO SKARB

Bóg jest z nami, jego prawda
Jak tarcza Cię ocali
Czekałeś na ten dzień tyle lat
Ruszaj z nami, z wątłymi marzeniami
Z ufnością, którą jeszcze masz

Właśnie nadszedł ten czas
Whoah, to jest właśnie ten czas

JESTEŚ STEREM, BIAŁYM ŻOŁNIERZEM
NOSISZ SPODNIE, WIĘC WALCZ
JESTEŚ ŻAGLEM, SZALONYM WIATREM
TWOJA SIŁA TO SKARB /5x

--------------------------------------------
Bajm - White Army

This is your flag, our young friend
You don't have to love its colors, oh no
This is your army and life on a constant run
You will never be alone

You can finally breath deep with pride
And rise high like an eagle, hey-hey
You can finally fade into a big city
You were born to serve us

This special moment has finally arrived
This is that special time

You're like a rudder, a white soldier
You wear pants, so fight
You're like a sail, a hurricane wind
Your strength is your finest trait

Mars inspires us, his courage
His shield will protect you
You've waited for this day so many years
Set out with us, with your humble dreams
With all the trust you still have

This special moment has finally arrived
This is that special time

You're like a rudder, a white soldier
You wear pants, so fight
You're like a sail, a hurricane wind
Your strength is your finest trait

This is an interesting commentary on the political situation. We in America do not have a clue what it was like living under communism or Nazism. The political bullshit that we have to listen to and read is all false, all driven by money. Even people who complain about McCarthyism in the 50's have no clue of what you in Europe had to go through. Except of course, for the people who survived the war and emigrated here.

Paul, my neighbors across the street when I was a teenager were Polish jewish survivors. The husband was in the army and the wife somehow jumped off a train headed to Auschwitz. Needless to say, they hated Germans. Other than that information, they told us nothing. My grandparents came from the Ukraine before the first world war.

While my grandparents were alive, I was unfortunately younger. It was before I became interested n languages. Therefore I learned no Russian Polish or Yiddish back then.

My aunt married a Czech survivor, who apparently was a partisan,but he didn't talk too much either.

War survivors, policemen, firemen, soldiers, etc. only talk among themselves, about such things that happen.

Incidentally, this song is indeed very beautiful, even though sad.

A bitter irony is, my dear Steve, that in 1968 many Jews were forced to leave their country of birth again following a wave of anti-semitism inspired by the communist regime. Even more ironically, many of them settled nowhere else but Germany where they managed to find shelter... It has to be said honestly that Poles were never very loving towards their countrymen of Jewish origins. Even if the latter were normal Polish citizens. This move by the commuinst regime bereft us of a vast part of our intellectual elite that somehow managed to survive WWII.

On the other hand, though, many Jews were very active in both pre- and postwar commuinst movement and after WWII some of them became very prominent figures in the communist regime, which added another reason for resentment on the part of ethnic Poles. Their involvement in the communist ideology, however, can be easily understood, especially in view of the common Jewish experience of having no proper country of their own and living in several diasporas around the globe...

As to your comment on what you possibly could have been fed with by your media - I certainly am in no position to judge upon that. But let me tell you this: "The Voice of America" programmes (broadcast in Polish) were a source of true information for us here during the communist era (just as Free Europe's programmes were). I also remember that in my teen years I frequently visited the US Embassy's library to be able to read "Time" or "Newsweek" to get to know what's really happening around the world. And these were the rare moments when I could say I was FREE! So as you see, very much depends on where you are standing!

I replaced "God" with "Mars" only because I tend to associate the word "God" with emotional weakness (i.e. hoping someone will come in and save you rather than relying on yourself) and conformity rather than rebellion. God and rock music don't usually go hand in hand. It just sounds strange. Soldiers on the other hand even in quite recent times have dedicated their hymns to Mars.

Moreover, the Bajm lyrics did not specify which God they were making their reference to, so could be any one of them.