Numeri

Raf

英語の翻訳

アルバム:

Numeri (2011)

オリジナル歌詞

イタリア語

翻訳

英語

Numeri

Numbers

Prime, perfect, real, and rational,

or odd, complex, lost, forgotten.

We’re numbers, we’re rich and poor, but we’re just numbers,

we’re women and men, and we’re numbers of any kind,1

expressed by indices, summarized by averages,

always in numbers a bit greater than that of the chairs.2

60 millions, of which 1/3 work, 1 out of 30 is unemployed, 1 out of 1000 can’t get a house.3

You count 8 of them and the ninth is poor,

and for the tax office, for every 1000 of them there’s a multimillionaire.

But people who lose their mind and who wheels and deals, usually outdo people who are deserving and have decency.4

Maybe it’s only now that we know for sure what’s left of the 80s: the 0.5

So many shadows beyond the horizon, so many in your thoughts, so many in my thoughts.

Infinite numbers to be saved.

How much love can you have? More than you can give.

We’ve come down to an ill State,

for each newborn we have a violent death and a piece of an immigrant,6

who, as soon as he’s completed, will be taken advantage of,

then hated and "Go away, back to where you came from, you nigger,

rather, you number, just a statistical zero, you redundancy buried by decimal points".

It’s war among the poor, war among numbers,

all that blood on the ground is used just to dye the bars of the graphs.

Numbers, we are numbers,

with names and faces known and imperceptible.

Numbers, not just numbers,

different and similar, everyone have their own story.

So many shadows beyond the horizon, (numbers, we are numbers)

so many in your thoughts, (numbers, we are numbers)

so many in my thoughts.

Infinite numbers to be saved.

How much love can you have? More than you can give.

Infinite numbers to be saved.

How much love can you have? More than you can give.

Subjected to a census, then to censorship.

All of us are accounted for according to our bank accounts.7

All tagged with a serial number.

Ticking machines among heaps of rubble.

All identical and so original that we leave our fingerprints on the net.

We are statistics fodder, we live inside lists,

everyone, truly everyone, including Nathalie, Raf, and Frankie.

Numbers, not just numbers,

different and similar, everyone have their own story.

1. genere = kind; sex; gender
2. It refers to the "musical chairs" game, in which people must walk around a circle of chairs (one chair short of the players); when the music stops, the player who can find no chair to sit down is out of the game.
3. These statistics are about Italy.
restare a casa {to stay home} = to be unemployed; to get fired.
4. dare i numeri {to give the numbers} = to freak out; to act like a madman.
fare i numeri {to make the numbers} = to make something in large numbers; to earn lots of money; to show great skills by getting through something difficult (also, manoeuvre with skill, not necessarily with uprightness)
avere i numeri {to have the numbers} = to have what it takes (money, supporters, skills, etc.) to do something
5. Cosa resterà degli anni ’80 {what will be left of the 80s} is a 1989 song by Raf.
6. Here, morti sani {healthy dead people} refers to people who are dead not because of an illness, but due to accidents at their workplace (which is a real problem in Italy, especially when the accident is the result of breaking laws about work safety).
Also, in southern Italy, sano means "whole", which contrasts with "a piece" of an immigrant (since, in statistics, it makes sense to talk about a fraction of a person).
7. contanti = cash
contare = to count (numbers); to matter, to be worth something
Literally, "we are all taken into consideration based on [our] cash".