Тишина [Tishina] [English translation]

It's quiet. Our candles are lit again,

So nicely and gently, without extra words,

I'm so sad, but this sadness is beautiful.

My soul haven't had a rest like this for along time,

I took a guitar, wrote a melody,

And the words rhyme so well in spite of lines being written unevenly.

It's quiet, and I hear a grand piano playing

So solemnly as if it is my melancholy, which is playing,

It1 must be the new accomplice of my soul.

Oh, how much I would like to feel unknown hands now,

And damningly pleasant and moist lips,

Female tenderness and quietude a whole week long.

Let all women remember me,

Those women whom I used to love as if in a dream,

I've only spent one night with them, I left them in the morning at once.

There's only one whom I will never leave,

She's my hope, faith, and love,

It's my duty to love her till the day I die.

I'll sing a song, and pour a glass2 till the brim

And I'll toast to something I never toast to,

May strangers meet me on their front porch trustingly.

And if I am to serve a term3, may it be enjoyable,

And may my mother wait for me but not for too long,

And may my friend with whom we drink nights away live long.

It's quiet. Our candles are lit again,

So nicely and gently, without extra words,

I'm so sad, but this sadness is beautiful.

If the candles go out there's a star,

The star that will always burn brightly,

It's my hope, faith, and love of my life--

My Russia!4

1. i.e. the piano2. of vodka3. a prison term4. in the third verse he is also speaking about his Motherland, saying that "she" is my hope, faith, and love