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| Riccardo Cuppini |
You probably don't have any photos of your shadow. You are too busy photographing life, living life. Shadows remind us the other world, close, present, and yet not present, not real, yet.
If you think the following sounds familiar, you are correct. I split it from an earlier piece for coherence, to try to separate themes.
In an effort to bridge the gap between the songs I know and love in Spanish and the songs in English I hear sung at the folk nights the mind turns to trying to perhaps convey the words of the Latin songs in English so they are not so....alien. It is an interesting exercise. Translating a poem is not straightforward, translating a song you want to sing, that scans, that is also a poem is the hardest kind of translation I have ever tried. I had a go yesterday with Vidala para mi sombra. I am managing to get the scanning and the translation, but the poetry, well....
Sometimes I follow my shadow
But sometimes s/he follows me
Poor shadow when I must leave here
With whom will s/he go?
It’s not that my wine spills in error
I pour it intentionally
My shadow drinks
And our life is shared by us both
Flattened and silent my shadow
Where could you possibly find
A little shadow companion
Who suffers alike / follows the same.
Shadow look after me well, please
No matter what I have to leave
when darkness come to engulf me,
deep within.
The more natural process I think comes over time. It is actually quite hard to sing in translation because the original keeps crowding to the front. Over a few months I sometimes found myself singing Luna Tucumana at home in an English version or a half Spanish, half English version. The right English words stay in place and the ones that don't quite fit fall away and are replaced by something different the next time.
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