Poems and Songs of Vladimir Vysotsky. A Ballad of Fighting.

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Commentary to “The Goner’s Song”.

This song has much in common with Alexander Pushkin’s poem “I’ve outlived my own yearn­ings...” (1821) (this text is adapted from Dina Belyaeva’s translation):

I’ve outlived my own yearnings,
I’ve out loved my own dreams!
I’m left with dire anguish burning,
A sign of hollow heart within.

Under the spell of cruel fortune,
My glory days have waned away!
I live alone in gloomy torture,
And wait but for my final day.

Such as when chills of autumn heighten
While winter blizzards take their hold,
Left on a barren branch, forsaken,
The last leaf shakes against the cold.

And it also calls to mind Alexander Pushkin’s letter to Vladimir Raevsky (1822).

The song was written in 1971.

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