Proletar [Hvor Jeg Står] [English translation]

(Laurtiz: This will change everything.

It's the beginning of a new era.

Lauritz: Then I comes home

to find that my wife is a homeowner.

Lauritz: And here I'd planned

to live and die as a proletarian.

Aksel: What's a proletarian?

Lauritz: No, I don't suppose mum would have taught you.

It's someone who doesn't own anything.) 1

I feel an increasing urge

to rip off my skin

And turn shit upside down

in order to not end up as a wretch of a man

Between people bathed in rémoulade and chips2

The glitter and glamour of a suburb

mixed in with bad lines3

Tired of serving the stinking rich

selling them luxury goods

Or flipping burgers at the chippy

for a moldy crowd

Of dangerous types who I guess

are just as used up as me

With zero tolerance up their sleeves

and a scent of idiot

Proletarian with the same sweatsuit

as his wife

Football dad walks through the concrete desert

like a dromedary

Home to his burrow

and visits the pub with his mates

Escaping the cold, back to life

so we forget it all

Thick smoke fills out

the bottom of our lungs

And spreads through the system

so we can't feel the hunger

I walk through the fog

listening to seagulls scream

And hope it's the last time

I wear shoes worn down to the soles

But forget me, fuck it

I'm managing well enough for now

People like us keep searching

blindly for better times

Driving expensive cars

even though we know we can't afford it

Because the moment we have just a little

the whole world needs to know it

People keep staring at the same things

but I have nothing to say (because)

every time I think people have change just a little

there's nothing new

Because it's still the same

from where I stand

People keep staring at the same things

but I have nothing to say (because)

every time I think people have change just a little

there's nothing new

Because it's still the same

from where I stand

Where I'm from

closeness keeps all the shit together

Brothers who bring shame

are looked at like shit in a drainpipe

Because you pansies can't do what we do

and have fuck all to do

With the audience

we're trying to reach

Yeah, I'm from Albertslund4, you cunt

One of the lads you love to shit talk

and who get

your day to crumble

The social class

that doesn't exist according to you5

The arseholes your offspring

must never-ever imitate

And who do so for the same reason

because shit's fucking interesting

My life, in contrast to your shitty life,

suddenly seems interesting

So take your happines and idyll

and stick it up your ass

Haven't lost my temper

just completely honest and fucking furious

But forget me, fuck it

I'm managing well enough for now

People like us keep searching

blindly for better times

Driving expensive cars

even though we know we can't afford it

Because the moment we have just a little

the whole world needs to know it

People keep staring at the same things

but I have nothing to say (because)

every time I think people have change just a little

there's nothing new

Because it's still the same

from where I stand

People keep staring at the same things

but I have nothing to say (because)

every time I think people have change just a little

there's nothing new

Because it's still the same

from where I stand

1. The opening of this song is sampled from a scene in the Danish historical drama "Matador" (sometimes translated as "Monopoly") where the working class character Lauritz Jensen, known as "Red" due to his strong communist ideals, arrives home to discover that his wife has become wealthy enough to buy a house and that their young sons don't know the word "proletarian."2. I've chosen British English translations for some of the slang in this translation because it translates more readily to British words. In other word, "chips" here is in the British sense -- it would be fries in a lot of other English dialects.3. i.e. of drugs4. A working class suburb to Copenhagen5. A reference to claims that poverty doesn't exist in modern Denmark