Вершки и корешки [Vershki i koreshki] [English translation]

Moon like a turnip, stars like beans[**]

Thank you, mama, for your bread and salt

Soul is the root, the body is the top

Merry times are coming, guys!

The spring rain was wetting the grocer's

The musician Selivanov hanged himself on his scarf[***]

No one knew it would be that funny

No one knew it would be so much fun

A little boy found a machine gun

It happened so he doesn't live anymore[****]

In the kitchen he buttered his bread

Chewed it, drank some water and put the gun against his temple

And while he was eating and drinking from the glass

The poet Bashlachev fell out of the window and killed himself[*****]

Oh-oh, the trap has worked

Yet another little animal has been given to our hands

The world woke up from the heavy sleep

And an even greater spring came

The bed moaned under the weight of bodies

Goddamn, so much fun!

I broke the cap of my pen

A dead man was walking toward me

Breakfast, dinner and supper

The man is dead and we're not yet[******]

Moon like a turnip, stars like beans

Thank you, mama, for your bread and salt

Merry times are coming, guys!

Oh-oh, it can't get funnier

Oh-oh, it just can't get any funnier

[*]The title refers to the popular folk tale.

[**]A line from the poem by Alexander Prokofyev.

[***]Dmitry Selivanov was a fellow Siberian musician, the leader of the band Промышленная Архитектура (Promyshlennaya Arkhitektura/Industrial Architecture) and one of GrOb guitarists. His suicide in 1989 affected Letov a lot; this song and "Лоботомия" were dedicated to his memory

[****]A reference to the popular cycle of black-humored poems about "a little boy" who dies in various quirky ways from poem to poem. One of the most popular poems goes: "A little boy found a machine gun in the basement/Nobody lives in the village anymore".

[*****]Alexander Bashlachev was a poet, singer-songwriter and guitarist from Cherepovets, Russia, a cult figure in Russian rock scene. He commited suicide in 1988.

[******]Possibly a reference to the hit song by Аквариум (Aquarium), "Rock'n'Roll is Dead (But We're Not Yet)" (1983)

• Artist:Grazhdanskaya Oborona