The lyrics of the song Didymoteicho blues by Lavrentis Mahairitsas and Giorgos Ntalaras translated to English
Didymoteicho blues – English lyrics
In 1976 just before the sunrise
I took a ship, white like a fridge
like a hospital
In ’76, as in a bad joke,
like a cold surgery, the national monster
sent me to Chios (island)
A legendary walkon with my profile shred
soaking, sweaty, rotten summer,
shorn napes
Ethnic faction, parasites, harassment,
the same clientele from cine Omonoia
like a cheap cologne
In 76 I closed my eyes,
I smoked a cigarette end, I disapeared from the map
Dante’s hell
Like a disarmed, fake revolutionist
I had my alibi, my crippled dog,
I had my mission
I faltered “Yes Sir”, two months went by,
another ten were left, and here I am in Chaidari
young people in a furnace
I was hiding it from everybody like a smasher
I told myself: it will pass, I am the shelterer
a gift and a nightmare
Didymoteicho Blues…..
Next to me, there is Athens, like a siren for Ulysses
popular show case, the world’s belly button
behind me and in front of me
Many years like a tavern, like a gnome
a state of the friends of Greece, the love of emptiness
poetic freedom
In any case, back to my story
to my green unwashed clothes, to my wakeups
to my mute watchtower
To my transfer, to my crazy mind
to my hoarse morning, to my this, to my that,
here I am in front of Didymoteicho
Didymoteicho blues, with an untuned guitar,
Didymoteichoblues, my lost penny,
Didymoteichoblues, my dirty comb
my wet cigarettes, rotten fruit in the containers
Didymoteicho blues
Didymoteicho blues, it’s name is the reason,
Didymoteicho blues, a hole in the map,
Didymoteicho blues, an empty photograph
this absurd (reasonless) service
my stresful masturbation
Didymoteicho blues…….