• Cit
  • Lunedì 18 luglio 2016

Lou Reed e Baton Rouge

La polizia durante una manifestazione di protesta contro l'uccisione di Alton Sterling da parte di un agente, lo scorso 9 luglio (Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)
La polizia durante una manifestazione di protesta contro l'uccisione di Alton Sterling da parte di un agente, lo scorso 9 luglio (Mark Wallheiser/Getty Images)

“Baton Rouge” è una canzone di Lou Reed contenuta nel disco Ecstasy del 2000. Parla di una relazione sentimentale e delle sue complicazioni.

When I think of you Baton Rouge
I think of a Mariachi band
I think of sixteen
and a crisp green football field
I think of a girl I never had
When I think of you Baton Rouge
I think of a back seat in a car
Windows are foggy and so are we
as the police asked for our I.D.

So helpless
so helpless
Ooohhh, ooohhh, so helpless
ooohhh, so helpless
Ooohhh, so helpless
so helpless

Well I once had a car
lost it in a divorce
the judge was a woman of course
She said give her the car
and the house and your taste
or else I set the trial date
So now when I think of you Baton Rouge
and the deep southern belles
with their touch
I wonder where love ends
and hate starts to blush
in the fields in the swamps in the rush

In the terra-cotta cobwebs of your mind
when did you start
seeing me as a spider spinning web
Of malicious intent and you as poor, poor me
at the fire at the joint
this disinterred and broken mount
in the bedroom in the house
where we were unmarried

So helpless, so helpless
so helpless
So helpless, so helpless
so helpless

When was I the villain in your heart
putting the brake on your start
you slapped my face and cried and screamed
that’s what marriage came to mean
The bitterest ending of a dream

You wanted children and I did not
was that what it was all about
You might get a laugh
when you hear me shout
you might get a laugh
when you hear me shout I wish I had

So helpless, so helpless
so helpless
So helpless, so helpless
so helpless

Sometimes when I think of Baton Rouge
I see us
with two and a half strapping sons
One and a half flushed daughters
preparing to marry
and two fat grandsons I can barely carry
Daddy, uncle, family
gathered there for grace
a dog in a barbecue pit goes up in space

The dream recedes in the morning
with a bad aftertaste
and I’m back in the big city worn
from the race of the chase what a waste
So thanks for the card
the announcement of child
and I must say you and Sam look great
Your daughter’s gleaming in that –
– white wedding dress with pride
sad to say I could never bring
that to you that wide smile

So I try not to think of Baton Rouge
or of a, of a, of a Mariachi band
Or of sixteen
and a crisp green football field
and the girl
and the girl I never had
So helpless, so helpless
so helpless
So helpless, so helpless
so helpless

(qui la traduzione in italiano)