Week 10: Eastern Bloc Rock

  1. Plastic People of the Universe, “Egon Bondy’s Happy Hearts Club Banned” (Lyrics trans. Michaela Appeltova)

“Dvacet (Twenty)”

In these times when one is twenty 

one feels like vomiting out of revulsion

But those who are forty

have much more to vomit

Only the one who is sixty

Can sleep well with sclerosis

 

“Zacpa (Constipation)”

Oh how afflicted and tormented I am

by constipation’s terrible favor

 

I am carrying a hard stone in my belly

And a fire is burning me inside my bladder

 

My intestines are rotting, I reckon

Or they will get fried in together with the dung

 

Gas is coming out of my mouth

Sometimes a thick discharge too

 

Oh how afflicted and tormented I am

by constipation’s terrible favor

 

“Toxika (Toxic)”

I am a victim of addiction, a toxicomaniac

It could be angering but it is comic

I drink beer, swallow pills

Anyway, I am barely allowed to fall asleep

In the morning I will sell empty bottles

Julia will help me with this

 

  1. The Berlin Celebration Concert [You only need to watch the first ten minutes, and then 57:00-the end)
  2. David Hasselhoff at the Berlin Wall