by Jochen Markhorst
XVII Hits and misses
One of the most apocalyptic concerts Dylan has performed in his long career takes place on 17 July 1994 in Krakow. All of Europe is watching one of the dullest Football World Cup finals ever (Italy-Brazil in Pasadena, California; 0-0 after extra time; Brazil wins on penalties after Roberto Baggio aims for the stars and shoots his penalty way, way over the crossbar, creating the perhaps most infamous penalty kick of all time). Meanwhile, 4,000 Poles are unaware of the Italian tragedy, standing in the Stadion Cracovia, the stadium of one of the oldest Polish football clubs, waiting for Dylan’s first concert on Polish soil.
The weather forecast predicts misery, and from the second song onwards, “Just Like A Woman”, appears to have been still a tad too optimistic – song number three “All Along The Watchtower” almost goes down in the infernal driving rain and ferocious gusts of wind that will plague the rest of the shortened concert.”Rain coming in diagonally and horizontally,” as Victor Maymudes recalls (in Jacob Maymudes’ Another Side of Bob Dylan, 2014). After song number 9 “The Times They Are A-Changin’”, the weather gods have won and Dylan has to throw in the towel. According to Maymudes, the stage now holds “three inches of water”.
Among the 4,000 Poles is our Dylan friend Filip Łobodziński, who shares his memories 27 years later in a wonderful, nostalgic article on Untold Dylan (Memories of the first ever Polish concert Bob Dylan gave in 1994. – Untold Dylan). The wind and rain do not succeed in extinguishing his love of Dylan however. On the contrary, Filip cherishes the concert as a personal highlight, which, incidentally, he seems to share with Dylan himself…
Andrzej Marzec, the Polish concert promoter, told me later that Dylan had turned to him just after the gig and said: “I’ve just played my very best concert for the very best audience”. On other occasions, he apparently alluded to the event as a “metaphysical experience”.
(Filip Łobodziński, Untold, 17 May 2021)
Filip, a pivotal figure in the Polish world of art and culture for decades as well as a professional translator, does not profess his love only passively. With his tribute band dylan.pl he has been performing Dylan covers in his own, usually very successful arrangements and in his own translations since 2014. Translations that are officially published as well: Bob Dylan: Duszny kraj (“Soulful country”, 2017) and Przekraczam Rubikon (2021) compiling about 250 song lyrics, and, even more impressively, a translation of the untranslatable monster Tarantula.
Filip describes his struggles comprehensively and insightfully in three fascinating essays on Untold Dylan: Remarks of a happy Tarantula reader , “Like a Polish Wanderer: the work of translating Bob Dylan” and the third using “Like A Rolling Stone” as a case study: LIKE A POLISH STONE: the issues of translating Bob Dylan into a foreign language. In his Polish translation: “Jak błądzący łach – Like A Stray Bum”.
Dylan.pl – Jak błądzący łach:
It is a gripping account. The song is “one of the most important songs in the whole music industry,” Filip writes, so that puts extra pressure on the translator. That, and Filip’s ambition “to be perfectly suited to the Polish mentality”. Which, to take just one example, moves him to translate “the pretty people” with “młodzi-prężni” meaning something like “the young and resilient”, and which makes the first verse almost unrecognisable when translated back:
Long long time ago you were straight from a catwalk Alms to a poor man while you as, if from Eden You had luck They warned you, „It’ll turn out bad You’ll find yourself on the bottom”, and you thought that It was just a joke
… changes, derivations and adaptations, each of which he insightfully justifies. And then Filip takes us through the entire translation verse by verse, and almost word by word, to conclude with:
“I worked on it for about two weeks. It turned out to be coherent, convincing (in Polish) though I’m almost sure one can give it another try and do it better. But what I’m aware and proud of, it proved efficient on the record and live.”
Bold and quirky and successful, all in all – similar to what Romanian Alexandru Andrieș and what Japanese Haruomi Hosono dare to do with their translations of Dylan songs. And bolder than many of the official translations of Lyrics anyway. Though Filip, prompted in part by collegial sympathy no doubt, himself likes to point to a “regular”, i.e. English-language cover by his Polish compatriots Stanisław Soyka and Janusz “Yanina” Iwanski:
“The album NEOPOSITIVE, recorded with Janusz “Yanina” Iwański, a splendid jazz guitar player, was released in 1992. Unless I’m mistaken – the source for Sojka (Soyka, as he liked to be spelled at the time) was definitely the Budokan album (cf. the chord sequence).”
Like a Rolling Stone – Stanisław Soyka & Janusz “Yanina” Iwanski:
Official translations of Lyrics, i.e. those for which a local publisher has entered into a licensing agreement with the rights holder through Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department in New York, usually adhere much more strictly to the content, usually opt, in other words, for literal translations. Out of a professional principle, as the Portuguese translator explicitly explains. The bilingual edition of Canções is a titanic work on which the two translators Angelina Barbosa and Pedro Serrano worked for two and a half years, eventually being published in two volumes (Volume 1: 1962-1973 in September 2006 and Volume 2: 1974-2001; 27 letras de primeiras canções escritas entre 1961 e 1963 in June 2008). In the notes, Serrano describes the genesis and creation, and justifies the modus operandi:
“Our approach to translation would be harshly literal, that is, we would absolutely respect what was written and not allow ourselves to be tempted by what was perhaps the author’s intention, the meaning of the words, intuition or sensibility…”
“This choice caused us frequent aesthetic suffering,” adds the harried translator. But the duo succeeds wonderfully; if – for instance – we translate back the opening couplet of “Como Uma Pedra a Rolar”, we get:
Era uma vez tu vestias-te tão bem Atiravas um cêntimo aos mendigos no teu apogeu, não era? As pessoas avisavam-te, diziam: «Cuidado boneca, olha que vais cair» Pensavas que te estavam todos a gozar Costumavas rir de Toda a gente que andava por ali Agora não falas tão alto Agora não pareces tão orgulhosa Por ter de andar a cravar a próxima refeição.
Once upon a time you dressed so well You threw a penny to the beggars in your heyday, didn't you? People warned you, said: ‘Watch out doll, you're going to fall’ You thought everyone was making fun of you You used to laugh at Everyone who walked by Now you don't talk so loud Now you don't seem so proud For having to cram for your next meal
… an almost literal rendering of the source text. Which suggests that the translators have done meticulous, down to the millimetre, customisation – which must have been a hell of a job. But: it is a voluntary and principled choice. “For neither of these two works were any restrictions pointed out to us by the editor Simon & Schuster,” Serrano reports on enquiry. Nor, Serrano knows, to the official translator of Spanish Bob Dylan : letras, 1962–2001, José Moreno. And that is a refrain among translators: no weird demands were made. To none of the translators around the world. With one single exception: to our poor German friends Carl Weissner and Walter Hartmann – who then obviously shoot over the crossbar. But, remarkably, only every now and then. And not even that far over…
To be continued. Next up Like A Rolling Stone part 18: They wanted to check if the spirit of the lyrics was preserved
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Jochen is a regular reviewer of Dylan’s work on Untold. His books, in English, Dutch and German, are available via Amazon both in paperback and on Kindle:
- Blood on the Tracks: Dylan’s Masterpiece in Blue
- Blonde On Blonde: Bob Dylan’s mercurial masterpiece
- Where Are You Tonight? Bob Dylan’s hushed-up classic from 1978
- Desolation Row: Bob Dylan’s poetic letter from 1965
- Basement Tapes: Bob Dylan’s Summer of 1967
- Mississippi: Bob Dylan’s midlife masterpiece
- Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits
- John Wesley Harding: Bob Dylan meets Kafka in Nashville
- Tombstone Blues b/w Jet Pilot: Dylan’s lookin’ for the fuse
- Street-Legal: Bob Dylan’s unpolished gem from 1978
- Bringing It All Back Home: Bob Dylan’s 2nd Big Bang
- Time Out Of Mind: The Rising of an Old Master
- Crossing The Rubicon: Dylan’s latter-day classic
- Nashville Skyline: Bob Dylan’s other type of music
- Nick Drake’s River Man: A very British Masterpiece
- I Contain Multitudes: Bob Dylan’s Account of the Long Strange Trip
- Bob Dylan’s Rough And Rowdy Ways – Side B
- Bob Dylan’s High Water (for Charley Patton)
- Bob Dylan’s 1971
- Like A Rolling Stone b/w Gates Of Eden: Bob Dylan kicks open the door