Strövtåg i hembygden [English translation]

There's shimmer in the clouds and glitter in the lake,

there's light over beaches and isthmuses

and around me stands the delightful forest so green

behind the swaying grass of the meadow

And with summer and beauty and the chords of forest wind

stands my hometown and greets me happily,

welcome! - But where is my fathers farm,

it's empty behind the maple row.

It's empty, it's burned, it's ravaged and bare,

where it was, the rock face lays bare,

but above, the memory blows along with the wind so cool,

and that memory is all that remains.

And it's me who saw a gable stand white

and a window open within,

like piano it sounded and a cheerful bit

of a ballad with a nice melody.

And it's as if it were my fathers voice,

when he still was happy and young,

before the song got quiet in his dying chest

and his life got sorrowful and heavy.

It's empty, it's burned, I want to lay down

by the lake to hear his speech

about the old, that went, while the time passed on,

about the old in the Alster valley.

And his sad and purling answer he speaks,

but as weak if it just had been dreamed:

''It's been thrown to wind since twenty long years,

it's dead and buried and forgotten.

Where you remember lovely figures and visions,

there the emptiness stands vacant and bare,

and my eternal lullaby is all there is left

of the old in the Alster valley.''

• Artist:Mando Diao