COHEN HABLANDO DE LORCA

I was fifteen when I began to read Federico Garcia Lorca. His poems perhaps have had the greatest influence on my texts. He summoned up a world where I felt at home. His images were sensual and mysterious: ‘throw a fist full of ants to the sun.’ I wanted to be able to write something like that as well. A few years ago I wrote a musical adaptation of Lorca’s ‘Little Viennese Waltz.’ Then I noticed what a complex writer he was: it took me more than a hundred hours just to translate the poem. Lorca is one of those rare poets with whom you can stay in love for life.

Leonard Cohen

Tenía quince años cuando comencé a leer a Federico García Lorca. Sus poemas quizás han sido los que más han influenciado mis textos. Él convocaba un mundo en el que me sentía como en casa. Sus imágenes eran sensuales y misteriosas: "lanza un puño de hormigas al sol". Yo también quería poder escribir algo así. Hace unos años escribí una adaptación musical del 'Pequeño vals Vienés' de Lorca. Entonces noté cuán complejo era como escritor: me llevó más de cien horas traducir el poema. Lorca es uno de esos poetas raros del que puedes enamorarte para toda la vida.

Leonard Cohen

Traducción Isaías Medina

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LEONARD COHEN – TAKE THIS WALTZ
(Adaptación de Pequeño vals vienés)
Federico García Lorca
Interpretación y música de Leonard Cohen



Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay ay ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws
Oh, I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lilly
In some hallway where love's never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand

Ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea
There's a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They've been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay ay ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz, it's been dying for years
There's an attic where children are playing
Where I've got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lillies of snow
Ay ay ay

Take this waltz, take this waltz
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea
And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now, it's all that there is

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ANA BELÉN - 'PEQUEÑO VALS VIENÉS'
Letra: Federico García Lorca
Música: Leonard Cohen



En Viena hay diez muchachas,
un hombro donde solloza la muerte
y un bosque de palomas disecadas

hay un fragmento de la mañana,
en el museo de la escarcha
hay un salón con mil ventanas

ay ay ay ay,
toma este vals, este vals,
este vals con la boca cerrada
te quiero, te quiero, te quiero,
con la butaca y el libro muerto
en el oscuro desván del lirio
por el melancólico pasillo
en nuestra cama de la luna
y en la danza que sueña la tortuga
ay ay ay ay,
toma este vals, este vals
este vals de quebrada cintura
este vals,
este vals,
este vals
este vals
de si de muerte y de coñac
que moja su cola en el mar

En Viena hay cuatro espejos
donde juegan tu boca y los ecos,
hay una muerte para piano
que pinta de azul a los muchachos
hay mendigos por los tejados
hay frescas guirnaldas de llanto
ay, ay, ay, ay
toma este vals,
este vals,
este vals que se muere en mis brazos
porque te quiero
te quiero amor mío
en el desván donde juegan los niños
soñando viejas luces de Hungría
por lo rumores de la tarde tibia
viendo ovejas y lirios de nieve
por el silencio oscuro de tu frente

ay ay ay ay
toma este vals
este vals
este vals del te quiero siempre
este vals,
este vals,
este vals
este vals
de si de muerte y de coñac
que moja su cola en el mar
este vals
este vals
este vals
este vals
de si de muerte y de coñac
que moja su cola en el mar...