From: igor@cs.columbia.edu (Igor Pankevich)
Subject: Re: Boris Grebenschikov
Organization: Columbia University Department of Computer Science
Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1992 00:34:28 GMT

In article <LEONID.92Dec19131458@tuna.uchicago.edu>, leonid@tuna.uchicago.edu (Leonid Andreev) writes:
> In article <1992Dec19.001335.18691@husc3.harvard.edu> verbit@brauer.harvard.edu (Mikhail S. Verbitsky) writes:
> >   In article <LEONID.92Dec18185117@tuna.uchicago.edu> leonid@tuna.uchicago.edu (Leonid Andreev) writes:
> 
> Really? I did not know he used so much lyrics, written by
> other people, he did not even know who they are. I know he sung a 
> number of songs by Vertinsky, he used some well known English
> lyrics as well ( "Woodstock", "Death of king Arthur", etc. ).
> Well, "Gorod zolotoy" ( City the Golden ) - as for this one,
> nobody really knows, where it comes from. Bob used to refere
> to it as to "narodnaja", but this piece of lyrics is pretty 
> strange just for a folk song. Do you know anything about
> it's origin?
> 
The author of the song is actually well known. I don't immidiately recall his 
name right now, but he lives in Paris, having emigrated there some 10 years 
ago. BG, I think, completely screwd up the meaning of the song, though, by
replacing in the first line "Nad nebom golubym" (Above the blue sky) with
"Pod nebom golubym" (Under the blue sky). The song came out ok, but the meaning
is totally different, if you think about it, from the original. I myself never
heard Bob referring to the song as "narodnaya", and I would think he knows 
the author well (BTW, the name got back to me: XBOCTEHKO (no first name, sorry)).
His songs are becoming increasingly popular at least in StPetersburg.
And the music, as I think everybody knows, is XIV century "lyutnya" (in English?).
Actually, BG has borrowed texts, at least, from a lot of Western musicians, 
one of which is Bob Dilan, for instance. ("This is the end of the world as we know
it", I think is his product). And, back to the "Gorod Zolotoi", it's lyrics, 
as you rightly noticed, could not possibly be "folk" one. It is one of the
parts in Kabballistic cosmogony, just put into verses. If anybody read "Altist
Danilov", they will remember the part which the Blue Bull played there. It is the
same one as "Sinii vol ispolnennii ochei". Anyway, bull, lion and an eagle go
together trough a whole lot of cosmogonic concepts, not only the Kabbalistic one.

> 	   
> >           Anyway, this song is pretty similar to the
> >   	   Storozh Sergeev (Watchman Sergeev) chef d'oevre
> >	   which was written also 1981-2.
> 
> Well, that's true, one can see some "edinstvo stil'a" 
> (common style? - I've got no idea, what appropriate English 
> expression should be used) with this song as well as with,
> say, "Stihi pro Innokentija" ( Verses about Innokenty ). The
> problem here is that Bob *really* has this uniq ability of 
> "borrowing" styles from other people, he worked with. And it 
> is definitely true, that he borrowed a real lot from his
> friend Gunitsky.
> So sometimes it's really hard to tell...
> 
Now, I think you should see why this song, taken as it should have been, and
looked upon from the right point of view, is one of a kind, different from all the
other songs sung by BG. There can not possibly be any unity of stiles here: 
"Gorod" is a philosophically loaded piece, while "Storozh Sergeev" is just a
nicely drawn picture "Iz gorodskoi zhizni" (city life), and "Innokentii" is
simply an example of what in Russian called "graphomanstvo" in it's best
appearance. Or a caricature on such...
> 
> >
> >	   Misha.
> 
> It was nice talkin' to you.
> 
> /\.


All the best,

--Igor P.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.europe,talk.politics.soviet