Русский язык

The «Best Lyrics for Trololo Man» Competition announced by the Baltic Information Agency and People’s Artist of Russia Eduard Khil is running from June 1st. Intermediate results of the Competition are to be published every week.

By the end of the first week of the Competition there are more than 30 e-mails from various countries received by our mail box trololo@baltinfo.ru. Among the participants of the Competition there are students, retirement pensioners, doctors and artists. Their lyrics submitted are being judged by the Competition Jury headed by Mr. Eduard Khil.

Here are some specimen of lyrics sent for the Competition
(the translations from Russian are word for word).

The «Trololo» tune evoked thoughts of friendship to Ms. Lubov’ Slepneva:

If a friend is near – that is fine.
It is nice to be together, it is nice!
If a friend is near, the best friend
You are fortunate! You are lucky dog!
And It is better to see sunrises and sunsets
If a friend is near, the best friend.
And I need not another.

Natalya Mikhailovna sent more than one variant of lyrics:

I am going home along the beautiful Neva river,
My soul is singing.
Birds singing, I have my heart miss a beat,
My heart wants to fly.

Mr. Viktor Kalagin from Podolsk named his songs «Return to my darling». The lyrics are the following:

I’m walking on the green grass,
I’m singing a song, winged with happiness.
My song, fly in all haste to my sweetheart,
So that I could finally find my fortune.
I’m in a hurry to her.

Mr Vassily Popovkin from the town of Liski in Voronezh Oblast sent his variant of lyrics:

Hello, Earth! I am your grass-blade.
Hello, expanse! I am your spire.
You are my spring, you are my dream, you are my light, you are my love.
You are my wave, you are snowstorm, you are drip of thawing snow,
You are a flight of a dream.

Mr. Edward Evans sent the English lyrics to the tune and, by the way, he is the only to make play wit the original name of the song, «I Am Glad I'm Finally Going Home»:

Home, coming home
No more hesitating
Glad I'm coming home, coming home
Where my love is waiting
I felt that I wanted the freedom to play, left you for to roam
I see it was wrong now for me to have strayed and I'm coming home
Coming home, where my love is waiting.

Someone with a nickname Yashimov sent the following lyrics:

Yes, it’s me who is going to you through the years again.
From my childhood I have lived in stone jungle
But I love the sun and the land,
I will not run from rain,
I will breath a chestful of fresh air.
Without doubts I live,
And there are still many things what I can do.

In the course of the Competition the Baltic Information Agency faced a problem that many participants sending their lyrics do not leave their names, phone contacts, do not specify their place of residence.

«Dear authors, it is very important for us to know how to contact with you. Please be so kind as to provide maximum of information about you», – says Mr. Eduard Khil.

On the other hand we’d like to remind of the terms and conditions of the Competition, that «the subject of a stanza is at its author’s choosing, reflecting his own view of life».

«The subject of the majority of lyrics sent is adventure of a cowboy. Let us leave it somehow, you see, this song is for everybody, it is about our life, happiness, love. About a cowboy returning home, it has been written enough», – added Mrs. Ludmila Pleskacheva, curator of the Competition.

She also said that many of the stanza submitted simply do not set to the tune of the song, therefore could not be its lyrics. Mrs. Pleskacheva asked the authors to listen to the tune more attentively and make their stanzas fit to the tune.

It is interesting to mention that the NGO «Communists of St. Petersburg and Leningrad Oblast” also participates in the Competition. They are sure that “the verses of a soviet poet Yaroslav Smelyakov ideally set the tune of «Vocalise».

Proletarians of all countries,
Beat the red drum!
Beat the red drum!
Beat the red drum!
Tra-la-la!

Do this without stint,
Don’t look askew and apart,
Beat the two drumsticks together so that the heavens shake!
The heavens shake! Yo-ho-ho-ho!

Let us add that the song «I Am Glad I'm Finally Going Home» was written 44 years ago. Its «second birth» it got quite recently, by the Internet. It was popularized by foreign web sites as a modern hit by Mr. Trololo. From that time many admirers of Eduard Khil’s creative work addressed to him wit a question where to get the lyrics to the song.

«It does not have any lyrics. It is simply a song of good mood, when I’m singing it I imagine Figaro – a light-hearted, frolic guy”. May be it is the song’s heartfulness that is to liking of many. And a great idea once leaped to my mind: why not to write lyrics to its tune all together?».

The Baltic Information Agency decided to help the singer realize his idea. From June 1st everybody can send his own lyrics the tune of Vocalise” to e-mail trololo@baltinfo.ru. Every week we are going to publish the lyrics submitted on the Web site of the Baltic Information Agency. And in a month we will strike a balance.

The Competition is being held in the only nomination group – a stanza of lyrics to the tune of «Vocalise» by Arkady Ostrovsky. The subject of a stanza is at its author’s choosing, reflecting his own view of life. The Competition is all-comers, irrespective of age and nationality. Stanzas written either by a single author or by a group of authors are receivable, co-authorship is allowed.

Criteria for judging lyrics submitted are original creative approach in the treatment of the subject, choice of the plot, literary style and a rhythmic fit between the stanza and the tune. 

The best stanzas, written in various languages of the world, will be combined to form a common song, a unique «Anthem of Planet Earth». The final results of the Competition and the names of the winners will be announced in the middle of August, 2010.