Something I care about

So, those following me hoping for stories may snort seeing another post about something that is not ponywords, but I swear I am working on stuff.

In the meantime, here is a German song I care a lot about for a series of different reasons, some ideological, some connected with my family history. I thought for a while about translating it into a Pony Story, something I may still do, but as it requires a lot of work not immediatly. By the way, seeing as I am a slow writer, I won’t start a fourth fiction at the moment, I have to wait to at least finish some of the stuff in my buffer.

Long story short, I translated the lyrics, I think it will say a lot about me and some of my inspirations, and decided to post them here because, as stated above, I care a lot about it and wanted to share it. I am also curious if it maybe brings up the same emotions in others, or if the connection I feel is a purely cultural dependent.

The song is “Die Eisenbahnballade” -”The Railroad Ballad” by Reinhard mey, the text is around 1k words, and the music can be found on your favourite music streaming services (I am sure Spotify carries it, not sure about Pandora Radio as it doesn’t stream here in Germany) and probably youtube, where there is at least one decent cover, a few registrations with horrid quality and maybe something better that is blocked by the GEMA (Germany’s musical right collecting society) here.

Heartfelt thanks to monokeras, who listens to my ramblings, and FoME, who checked the text and corrected a lot of issues it had.

---

Die Eisenbahnballade

A dense fog descended on the big foreign city.
A long working day was behind me, I felt tired and dull.
Too tired for the highway, too late for the last flight.
But I wanted to go home
And I found out
there was a train around midnight.

There was still some time, I did not know where to go, so I stood around at the station:
a magnificent building from times long past, pushing, searching and shoving all around.
I saw the travelers, the waiting ones and the stranded in the night,
so much indifference,
so much misery and suffering
under so much cold pride.

I went to the open platform, the wet and cold air kept me awake.
I shivered, struck my collar up and looked at my breath.
Out of the Darkness above the track hovered three lights, my train arrived
A wagon door closed.
It was warm in the train,
and I was in the compartment alone.

Silently we went on, and the lights of the city sank into a milky porridge.
And lit windows and suburban stations flew over faster and faster.
Another railway crossing, a few lights, and the outside world disappeared.
My compartment light fell in white
on the gravel on the track,
and I sensed the dark land.

And through the darkness came
the monotonous sound
of the wheels on the rail track,
a lone song,
along the steely way

Along the route they stood, their skin weathered.
With their spades they had nicked veins into the country,
with picks and hammers they moved mountains
and set thresholds on gravel and on rails.
In bitter frost, scorching heat, in rain, day by day,
by night a straw mattress on the floor in wooden shed.
And again on the break of dawn for miserable wages
Another new assets for the steel baron.

And soon the steam locomotive hissed through the country throwing sparks.
Many new industries and many empires arose
along some incalculable wealth, but at every meter track,
on each bridge, each tunnel sticked tears, blood and sweat.
The railroad was progress, technological revolution
in every corner of the land, to the most remote station.
It carried goods from the ports to the edge of the Alps,
connected People and cities and brought prosperity in the country.

But a tragedy often is bound to the great invention,
that they may serve peace, but also war.
Endless armor trains rolled soon day and night:
war machines and guns were the urgent freight.
The army already crowded the railway stations confident of victory,
jubilation on the lips and flowers on the rifles,
wagons draped in flags and slogans
directed to Lviv, Liege or Krakow.

The delusions of victory died in the barrage of Verdun,
trains became hospitals, and this time the railroad saw
-the retreat of the defeated and of the warlords under mockery,
in a wagon in the forest of Compiègne, the capitulation.
Millions dead on the battlefield, senseless suffering
those who came home, found poverty, misery and unemployment.
But on the soil of the collapse thrived
the pushers, the war profiteers, the speculation.

But it also sprang from the confused entangled politics
The delicate, vulnerable stalk of the first republic[1].
But pettiness, stupidity and violence trampled it soon
with hobnailed boots on the way to the Thousand Year Reich.
Monsters ruled, and the world watched in silence
And again they said "wheels must roll for victory"
And it began the darkest chapter of the nation,
the darkest of the Flügelrades[2]. The deportation.

Imprisoned in freight wagons, cooped up like cattle
starved and desperate, naked and shivering, they stood
helpless women and men, even old men and children
on the bitter journey whose destination was the death camps.

But then arrived the wrath of the humble,
no village was spared, no stone was left upon a stone,
and bombs fell, until the whole country was in flames,
towns wiped out and the ground burned down.

The war was more murderous than any war ever before,
and severely punished the people who had wickedly conjured it.
In rubble and ruins the hungry swept around,
the survivors, the bombed out, nothing worked anymore.

And long lines of refugees came every day
and wandered through a land lying under rubble.
The will to survive forced them to not resign,
the desperation brought them to try everything.
Yet they jumping on the side of the wagon, if there was a Hamsterzug[3] anywhere,
even if a bunch of people already hung at the door.
A place on a buffer, a footboard at best,
with hope of a little flour, potatoes or lard.

What fell on the railway, was gathered by us children,
And often a honest man robbed a coal train.
And then the trains came with the returnees,
wounded and bruised, torn, scuffed.

So many dramas played out on the platforms!
Search and tears of joy, where there was a reunion.
Waiting, hoping and questioning, will he be there this time?
Many came in vain, and many went home alone.

Shot up locomotives and wagons were summarily patched up
and sent on an adventurous rail network.
And the pulse began to beat, and out of nowhere came,
with hopes and dreams loaded, a new country.

And by the dawn came
the monotonous sound of
the wheels on the rail track,
A monotone sound,
along the steely way.

The rattling of the wheels over a switch called me into the present.
Bleary-eyed I woke up, I was almost there.
I rubbed my eyes and stretched, the neon light seemed pale,
And in the empty space
between waking and dreaming
I saw them

The Adler, the Flying Hamburger, the Prussian P 8[4],
and the legendary O5 hissed before me through the night
A returning train on the adjacent track pulled me out of the Dreaming.
A look at the clock,
ten minutes only,
And I will be home for breakfast

Outside I could see into illuminated windows for a moment.
Saw the people on the way to work standing on the suburban railway stations,
Saw headlights of the cars at the bar at the railroad crossing,

and a hope laid
over the new day
And the sunrise.

[1]Weimar Republic

[2]The Winged Wheel: Symbol for the Reichsbahn, the German Train monopolist at the time

[3]Literally “Hamster Train”: Trains that came from the cities, full of people trying to get some supplies in the country, as the farmers were the only ones with some food

[4]List of famous historical trains