Stalingrado
Stormy SixOriginale | English version by Riccardo Venturi, May 6, 2008 |
STALINGRADO | STALINGRAD |
Fame e macerie sotto i mortai | Hunger and ruins under mortar bombings |
Come l'acciaio resiste la città | But like steel the city will resist. |
Strade di Stalingrado di sangue siete lastricate | Streets of Stalingrad, you are paved with blood, |
Ride una donna di granito su mille barricate | A stone woman is laughing on thousands of barricades |
Sulla sua strada gelata la croce uncinata lo sa | On its frozen way, the swastika knows it well: |
D'ora in poi troverà Stalingrado in ogni città | from now on, it will find Stalingrad in every town |
L'orchestra fa ballare gli ufficiali nei caffè | The band makes the officers dance in the cafés, |
l'inverno mette il gelo nelle ossa | all men's bones are frozen with winter cold, |
ma dentro le prigioni l'aria brucia come se | but inside the jails, the air is burning as if |
cantasse il coro dell'armata rossa | the Red Army choir were singing |
La radio al buio e sette operai | A radio in the darkness, and seven workers, |
sette bicchieri che brindano a Lenin | seven glasses drinking a toast to Lenin * |
e Stalingrado arriva nella cascina e nel fienile | and Stalingrad reaches the old farmyard and the hayloft |
vola un berretto un uomo ride e prepara il suo fucile | a cap is flung in the air, a man laughs and prepares his gun |
Sulla sua strada gelata la croce uncinata lo sa | On its frozen way, the swastika knows it well: |
D'ora in poi troverà Stalingrado in ogni città | from now on it will find Stalingrad in every town. |
* Reference is made here to the seven brothers Cervi, perhaps the best known Italian partisan family. All were sentenced to death and executed by Nazis and Italian fascists on December 28, 1943. |