Die alten Lieder [English translation]

"Where are your songs -

Your old songs?"

We are often asked by those from other countries

When we're sitting by the fireside

Having danced to exhaustion and said all that was to say

Transpiring after the merriment!1

Yes, where are the songs -

Our old songs?

Not for a farthing or a shilling 2

My darling will walk barefoot 3

And no shrill call for the north

Will come out of our throat!4

Dead are our songs -

Our old songs!

Teacher have chewed them apart

Boys in shorts have played them with poor guitar accompanying - 5

Brown hordes have shouted them to death 6

Boots have tramped them into the mud!

Dead are our songs -

Our old songs!

1. In the 60ies and 70ies the anglicism High-Life was used for having a party.2. Heller and Batzen are old coins, I used farthing and shilling to give a basic idea. Actually it's a title of a song, where the wanderer has spent both coins for beverages.3. Feinsliebchen du sollst mir nicht barfuß gehen (darling you should not walk barefoot), is another song.4. The shrill call comes from the geese flying north, also from a popular song "Wildgänse rauschen" (Wildgeese fly by) written in world war I. 5. It means they were played by the members of the "Wandervogel" movement (I can't see what's wrong with it), Klampfe is a slangword for guitar6. Some Nazi organisations preferred brown shirts. Thus in the author's eyes, the songs were abused and sullied by them. That is the reason why noone wants to sing them any longer.