Bora Đorđević

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bora_%C4%90or%C4%91evi%C4%87

In my opinion Bora Đorđević is the best rock'n'roll representative of both urban/love/youthfulness angst and anti-communist (or even better anti-totalitarian) feelings in old Yugoslavia. I wish his books with poems were translated to Spanish/English.... He sort of took my literary virginity (Jules Verne and Asimov on the SF end.) I still remember bumping into his first book of poems Ravnodušan prema plaču ("Apathetic towards Crying", as wikipedia translates it.) I was only 10 or 11 years old but something in there just clicked. It was a late autumn/early winter I believe and I was shop hopping with my mom, she was looking for something to buy. At the book store I saw this book from Bora Djordjevic (of whom I knew) and I begged her to buy it for me. From that moment on as we would go into a new shop I would just find a quiet spot in it and read. I must have read half of the book before we finished shopping. It blew my young, unspoiled (I think) mind away. Some of the songs were just silly rhymes, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but most were powerful and far more powerful than I could comprehend at such an early age. I just knew that there was *something* in them, even if I was unsure exactly what.

Unfortunately his post-fall-of-communism work is not as nearly as inspired. It is as if while Bora couldn't speak out his mind directly, he was able to create subversive, ironic, highly amusing and deeply touching poems/songs. But once the little censorship there was at the end of the 80s died... he could say anything he wanted... but he didn't know how anymore. How do the restriction of our existence improve our ability to overcome them? I don't know. But it certainly looks as if his best period was his least free period.

Here's the translation of his probably most famous song: Look homeward Angel. It's not really Bora's typical song (as wiki entry mentions) as he's much more ironic than direct as here. But it shows the power of his words and just how he was feeling and expressing those feelings back in communist Yugoslavia of circa 1985.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogledaj_dom_svoj,_an%C4%91ele
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5CgO4ySxf0

Look homeward Angel
And take away cowebs from your eyes,
You will see stirring sights,
You will see the unhappy and the sick,
You will see misery, death and sorrow,

Look at your flock Angel,
Only the cripple and the beggars,
The blind are roaming in the crowd,
They have broken everybody's spine,
From you they are expecting the salvation.

Look at the scum Angel,
Their soul is damned,
They have put everybody into harness,
Raised themselves the temples,
Their hands are drenched in blood.

Raise your sword Angel,
Remember the crusades,
Remember the cut throats,
When you come before God,
Let your soul be in peace.

Fulfill the prayers Angel,
I hope all the tyrants drop dead,
Be an avenging Angel,
Let them feel on their own skin,
What grief, fear and pain mean.