Hey dear people! 🙂
Today I’d like to share with you this lovely song by the Welsh alt-folk trio Plu, whose music is fairly frequently featured on here. It comes from their album Tir a Golau (Lad and Lights). Quite surprisingly for myself, I was even able to translate it. You guys know that I’m still pretty bad at translating Welsh music solely by ear, and when you’re into some small languages, it’s not always as comfy as googling “Artist Song lyrics” and finding said lyrics right away, because often it might require a bit more perseverance to find what you’re looking for at the bottom of the Internet, or it might not be available online at all. Plu’s lyrics usually don’t seem to be, but what I always try to do in such cases is fish out a part of lyrics that I can completely understand and that at the same time is not too generic and distinct enough that it’s not likely to pop up in too many other contexts except what I’m looking for, and then I google it in quotes. And this time round, I happened to be lucky, because I found an S4C (Welsh-language television channel) transscript of a programme where Plu were singing this song. And the lyrics are pretty easy linguistically so I was able to translate it with no particular issues, though again, it’s not like I’m an experienced Welsh-English translator or a native speaker of either of these languages so it’s definitely possible that it has some mistakes or that it just could be better, but as always it’s just to give you more or less of an idea of what it is about. I am sharing with you a live version of this song which they sang at a Celtic music festival called Cwlwm Celtaidd. They precede the song with two verses of a traditional Welsh lullaby called Mil Harddach (A Thousand Times More Beautiful), for which the below translation comes from Mama Lisa’s website.
You’re a thousand times more beautiful than the white rose Or the red rose on the hillside, Or the proud swan swimming in the lake, My little baby. A thousand times better than all the gold in the world Is to see your smiles in your crib, You are my fortune and my blessing, My little baby.
And here’s Bibielz translation of Gollwng Gafael.
You love the land more than the earth
And the wave more than the water
You love “was” more than “will”
And what is the world without its story?
Without sky, there are no horizons
Without tomorrow, there is no yesterday
Open your eyes
To experience letting go
For you, the inspiration is in a song
And the bleak books in front of you
The inspiration is everyday
Uncovering the truth
By pulling off every layer
Without sky, there are no horizons
Without tomorrow, there is no yesterday
Open your eyes
To experience letting go
You love the land more than the earth
More than the truth
My Inner MishMash 