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Bard
Written by oliviawallwork
With the aim of staying true to the original purpose of Pavel’s Voice, here’s a bit of background information on the general genre of bard, also known as ‘author song’ (or авторская песня if you can read Russian). Typically referred to as poets, their lyrics are the main focus of their songs – with the music being a secondary aspect of bard, compromising of simple Russian guitar (that has 7 strings) accompaniment and chord progressions.
It gained popularity from the 1950-60s but was only heard mostly through small live performances or a magnitizdat, which is an amateur tape-recording that was not available commercially, due to censorship of their sometimes political nature. Even with little official, publicised releases of bard poetry/song, some bard artists were able to hold concerts for their following. However, the main aim of these artists was to promote their political or social message and they were not concerned with commercial success.
The genre can be divided into two sub-genres, or two main types of song: tourist song or political song. Tourist songs celebrate the freedom that the youth could find when escaping to the wilderness, which was not found in their daily lives. Particular excursions included sailing, camping and kayaking and notable artists of tourist songs are Yuri Vizbor and Alexander Gorodnitsky.
[One suggestion of the translation of the lyrics of Милая моя (My Honey):
All our meetings are unfortunatly destined with separation,
Creek near amber pine tree is quiet and sorrow
Coals in the camp fire are covered with ash,
Everything is ended – its time to say goodbye
My honey, my woodland sun,
Where, in which land
Will you meet me again?
Tents folded the wings-they flight is ended,
Plane spread the wings-its the sighn of separation
Ladder go out from the plane slowly
And i see deep ceparate us now
Don’t comfort me, i don’t need words,
I’d wish to find that creek near amber pine tree,
Suddenly i’d see flame of camp fire through the fog,
Imagine-someone would waiting for me near that flame!]
Tourist songs were tolerated by authorities, unlike political songs. These, through satirical or explicit lyrics, songs expressed their protest against the Soviet regime and owners of a magnitizdat of political songs could be prosecuted. Surprisingly, songs supporting Communism were actually considered to be ‘political songs’ and were often popular amongst bards.
Still popular to this day in Russia, bard music can be found around the world, for example at this festival in New York.