Qualcuno era comunista - Giorgio Gaber traduction en anglais

Qualcuno era comunista

Qualcuno era comunista perché era nato in Emilia
Qualcuno era comunista perché il nonno, lo zio, il papà
La mamma no
Qualcuno era comunista perché vedeva la Russia come una promessa
La Cina come una poesia, il comunismo come il paradiso terrestre
Qualcuno era comunista perché si sentiva solo
Qualcuno era comunista perché aveva avuto un'educazione troppo cattolica
Qualcuno era comunista perché il cinema lo esigeva, il teatro lo esigeva
La pittura lo esigeva, la letteratura anche: lo esigevano tutti
Qualcuno era comunista perché glielo avevano detto
Qualcuno era comunista perché non gli avevano detto tutto
Qualcuno era comunista perché prima, prima, prima, era fascista
Qualcuno era comunista perché aveva capito che la Russia andava piano ma lontano
Qualcuno era comunista perché Berlinguer era una brava persona
Qualcuno era comunista perché Andreotti non era una brava persona
Qualcuno era comunista perché era ricco ma amava il popolo
Qualcuno era comunista perché beveva il vino e si commuoveva alle feste popolari
Qualcuno era comunista perché era così ateo che aveva bisogno di un altro Dio
Qualcuno era comunista perché era talmente affascinato dagli operai
Che voleva essere uno di loro
Qualcuno era comunista perché non ne poteva più di fare l'operaio
Qualcuno era comunista perché voleva l'aumento di stipendio
Qualcuno era comunista perché la rivoluzione? Oggi, no
Domani forse ma dopodomani sicuramente
Qualcuno era comunista perché:
"La borghesia, il proletariato, la lotta di classe, cazzo"
Qualcuno era comunista per fare rabbia a suo padre
Qualcuno era comunista perché guardava solo Rai3
Qualcuno era comunista per moda, qualcuno per principio, qualcuno per frustrazione
Qualcuno era comunista perché voleva statalizzare tutto
Qualcuno era comunista perché non conosceva gli impiegati statali
Parastatali e affini
Qualcuno era comunista perché aveva scambiato il materialismo dialettico
Per il Vangelo secondo Lenin
Qualcuno era comunista perché era convinto di avere dietro di sè la classe operaia
Qualcuno era comunista perché era più comunista degli altri
Qualcuno era comunista perché c'era il Grande Partito Comunista
Qualcuno era comunista malgrado ci fosse il Grande Partito Comunista
Qualcuno era comunista perché non c'era niente di meglio
Qualcuno era comunista perché abbiamo avuto il peggiore partito socialista d'Europa
Qualcuno era comunista perché lo Stato, peggio che da noi, solo l'Uganda
Qualcuno era comunista perché non ne poteva più
Di quarant'anni di governi democristiani incapaci e mafiosi
Qualcuno era comunista perché Piazza Fontana, Brescia
La stazione di Bologna, l'Italicus, Ustica, eccetera, eccetera, eccetera
Qualcuno era comunista perché chi era contro, era comunista
Qualcuno era comunista perché non sopportava più
Quella cosa sporca che ci ostiniamo a chiamare democrazia
Qualcuno, qualcuno credeva di essere comunista e forse era qualcos'altro
Qualcuno era comunista perché sognava una libertà diversa da quella americana
Qualcuno era comunista perché credeva di poter essere vivo e felice
Solo se lo erano anche gli altri
Qualcuno era comunista perché aveva bisogno di una spinta verso qualcosa di nuovo
Perché sentiva la necessità di una morale diversa
Perché forse era solo una forza, un volo, un sogno
Era solo uno slancio, un desiderio di cambiare le cose, di cambiare la vita
Qualcuno era comunista perché con accanto questo slancio ognuno era come
Più di se stesso: era come due persone in una
Da una parte la personale fatica quotidiana
E dall'altra il senso di appartenenza a una razza che voleva spiccare il volo
Per cambiare veramente la vita
No, niente rimpianti
Forse anche allora molti avevano aperto le ali senza essere capaci di volare
Come dei gabbiani ipotetici
E ora?
Anche ora ci si come sente in due
Da una parte l'uomo inserito
Che attraversa ossequiosamente lo squallore della propria sopravvivenza quotidiana
E dall'altra il gabbiano, senza più neanche l'intenzione del volo
Perché ormai il sogno si è rattrappito
Due miserie in un corpo solo

Someone Was a Communist

Someone was a communist because he was born in Emilia
Someone was a communist because his grandfather, uncle, father were
His mother wasn't
Someone was a communist because he saw Russia as a promise
China as a poem, communism as an earthly paradise
Someone was a communist because he felt alone
Someone was a communist because he had a too Catholic upbringing
Someone was a communist because cinema demanded it, theater demanded it
Painting demanded it, literature too: everyone demanded it
Someone was a communist because he was told to be
Someone was a communist because he wasn't told everything
Someone was a communist because before, before, before, he was a fascist
Someone was a communist because he understood that Russia was going slow but far
Someone was a communist because Berlinguer was a good person
Someone was a communist because Andreotti wasn't a good person
Someone was a communist because he was rich but loved the people
Someone was a communist because he drank wine and got emotional at folk festivals
Someone was a communist because he was so atheist that he needed another God
Someone was a communist because he was so fascinated by workers
That he wanted to be one of them
Someone was a communist because he couldn't stand being a worker anymore
Someone was a communist because he wanted a raise
Someone was a communist because the revolution? Not today
Maybe tomorrow but definitely the day after tomorrow
Someone was a communist because:
"The bourgeoisie, the proletariat, the class struggle, damn it"
Someone was a communist to spite his father
Someone was a communist because he only watched Rai3
Someone was a communist for fashion, someone for principle, someone for frustration
Someone was a communist because he wanted to nationalize everything
Someone was a communist because he didn't know the state employees
Parastatals and the like
Someone was a communist because he had mistaken dialectical materialism
For the Gospel according to Lenin
Someone was a communist because he was convinced he had the working class behind him
Someone was a communist because he was more communist than the others
Someone was a communist because there was the Great Communist Party
Someone was a communist despite the Great Communist Party
Someone was a communist because there was nothing better
Someone was a communist because we had the worst socialist party in Europe
Someone was a communist because the State, worse than us, only Uganda
Someone was a communist because he couldn't take it anymore
Forty years of incapable and mafia-like Christian Democrat governments
Someone was a communist because Piazza Fontana, Brescia
The Bologna station, the Italicus, Ustica, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera
Someone was a communist because whoever was against it, was a communist
Someone was a communist because he couldn't stand it anymore
That dirty thing we insist on calling democracy
Someone, someone believed he was a communist and maybe he was something else
Someone was a communist because he dreamed of a freedom different from the American one
Someone was a communist because he believed he could be alive and happy
Only if others were too
Someone was a communist because he needed a push towards something new
Because he felt the need for a different morality
Because maybe it was just a force, a flight, a dream
It was just a leap, a desire to change things, to change life
Someone was a communist because with this impulse next to him, everyone was like
More than himself: he was like two people in one
On the one hand, the personal daily struggle
And on the other, the sense of belonging to a race that wanted to take flight
To truly change life
No, no regrets
Perhaps even then many had opened their wings without being able to fly
Like hypothetical seagulls
And now?
Even now you feel like two
On the one hand, the integrated man
Who obsequiously goes through the squalor of his daily survival
And on the other, the seagull, without even the intention of flight anymore
Because by now the dream has shrunk
Two miseries in one body