Kseniya Simonova — Sand Animation

This is the amazing Kseniya Simonova appearing on a Ukranian talent show (of all places). The songs appear to be very closely related to her story and are mostly Russian as far as I can tell (maybe others can be more decisive).

(1) Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters"
(played by Apocalyptica, the scandinavian Cello quartet, maybe)


(2) Sacred War (Napoleon’s Russian invasion)

Rise up, huge country,
Rise up for a mortal fight!
With the dark fascist force,
With the damned horde.

Refrain
Let noble fury
Boil up like a wave
A people's war is going on,
A sacred war!

We'll give repulse to oppressors
Of all fervent ideas,
Rapists, robbers,
Tormenters of people.

Refrain

Black wings don't dare
To fly over the homeland,
Her vast fields
The enemy doesn't dare to trample.

Refrain

To the rotten fascist scum
We'll drive a bullet into the forehead,
For the rabble of humanity
We'll knock together a solid casket!


(3) Dark Night
(translated by Alisa In WonderWords)

Dark night, only bullets
are whistling across the prairie,
Only the wind is humming along the wires,
And the stars are blinking dimly.
On this dark night I know you are not asleep, my love,
You are by the crib, wiping a tear.

How I love the depth of you sweet eyes,
How I wish I could press my lips against them.
Dark night is dividing us, my love,
And the troubled black prairie lay between us.

My faith is in you, my dear friend,
This faith has kept the bullet away on a dark night.
I am happy and calm in a mortal fight,
Since I know you will greet me with love, no matter what.

Death doesn't scare me, we faced it in the prairie before,
Here it is, hovering above me right now.
You are waiting for me, sleepless by the crib,
And that is why I know that I am safe from harm.


(4) Cranes
(Words by Rasul Gamzatov. Translation of Andrey)

It sometimes seemed to me that the soldiers,
Who didn’t return from bloody fields,
Didn’t lie down into our ground
But turned into white cranes.
And they are flying and are screaming their voices to us now
And they do it from that old time.
May be it is the reason why we often stop talking ruefully
When we look in sky.

The weary wedge of cranes is flying in sky,
It flies in the end of the day.
And there is a small interval inside this wedge
May be, it is a place for me.
May be, it will be a day and I shall fly
With the flock of cranes in the same blue sky
And I shall call everyone, whose I left in a ground,
From the sky by on the language of birds.

Mercedes Sosa

Mercedes Sosa
(Tucumán, 09-July-1935 — Buenos Aires, 04-Oct-2009)

Thanks to life
Words by Violeta Parra
(translated by Ron Adams, 10/07/09)

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me two bright eyes that, when I open them,
Can perfectly distinguish black from white
And in the distant sky with her starry backdrop,
And from within the multitudes, find the one I love.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me hearing that in all its wide ranging
Records night and day, the rattle of chains and canary songs,
Tyrant shouts, the roar of war, slander, misfortune’s storms,
And the tender, loving song.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me meaning and learning.
From them come the words I’m thinking and now confess:
"Mother," "Friend," "Brother"; and the light shining
On the road of the soul where love travels.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the strength in my tired feet.
With them I have crossed cities and seas
Valleys and deserts, mountains and plains
To your house, down your street to your heart.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me the passion that shakes my soul
When I see the fruits of real human understanding,
When I see far beyond the bad to the good,
When I look deep into your clear eyes.

Thanks to life, which has given me so much.
It gave me so much laughter and so many tears.
With them I rescue happiness from the crush of pain—
The two materials that form my song,
And your song, that is my song too,
And everyone’s song, that is my special song.
Here’s to the life, which has given me so much.