사뮈 (Samui) – 빈역 (Empty Station)

 

I will forever associate this with the noise war I just won with my upstairs neighbor who, despite living in an old apartment with incredibly NOT soundproof units, thought it would be appropriate to use an upright piano to practice on (instead of, say, purchasing a keyboard with headphones like considerate people). Every day around 4 or 5 P.M. they would practice piano for around two hours.

Usually I am at the gym around this time so I’m not even home to hear it. But I had a few weeks off so I would be at home trying to study (silently, like a considerate person) around this time.

For anyone unfamiliar with the way the physics of a piano work, it’s like this: when you strike a piano key, a hammer falls on the string and it uses the entire instrument to resonate and amplify the sound. Not only this, but pianos are incredibly heavy, which means these vibrations also transfer to the floor, which is why a piano can sound louder downstairs than it might, say, next door. Not that my neighbors apparently worried about that – the sound of their piano can be heard reverberating throughout the entire hallway, pretty much all the way down to the first floor. They live on the 12^th floor.

Needless to say, it was impossible to focus when studying. It was NOT like listening to nice piano music; not only is practice very different from performance, but apparently my neighbor is very bad at practicing as well! They would just run through pieces without keeping time, slowing down for problematic passes without stopping to run through parts that they clearly struggled with. I will never pretend I’m a musician, but I’ve played instruments enough for the poor practicing to feel like an itch that can’t be scratched (As they say, practice doesn’t make perfect – perfect practice makes perfect).

There was no way to avoid this racket. Even headphones wouldn’t block it out, not to mention the fact that it’s simply rude manners to be so loud, even during daytime hours for a good reason, when there are perfectly acceptable alternatives to being loud (re: keyboard).

As a petty, massively passive-aggressive person who hates being confrontational in a third language, I resorted to being my own version of loud. I started playing my own music back, starting with the loudest rock songs I knew. (At one point, I wound up playing Mahler’s 5^th in its entirety before they finally knocked off.) Unlike when listening to terrible piano practice, I learned I could still concentrate and translate when listening to music I was familiar with, regardless of how loud it was.

And that’s how this story ties into “Empty Station.” While I can still translate while listening to loud music, obviously I can’t transcribe, so I wound up translating songs from artists that I typically find near impossible to transcribe. Samui’s pronunciation is very… unique, so he was one of my first choices. And now you know what kind of a person I am.

 

 

한국어:

 

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 담배를 태우네

오늘의 열차는 모두 지나갔다 하지만

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 흥얼거렸네

그대 오늘 오신다고 나에게 약속했으니

 

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 담배를 태우네

오늘의 열차는 모두 지나갔다 하지만

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 흥얼거렸네

그대 오늘 오신다고 나에게 약속했으니

 

어쩌면 요일이 헷갈렸을까

그럴 수도 있을 것 같아요

그대는 지금도 같은 맘일까

그런 생각은 하지 않을래요

 

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 담배를 태우네

오늘의 열차는 모두 지나갔다 하지만

빈 역에 걸터앉아 종일 흥얼거렸네

그대 오늘 오신다고 나에게 약속했으니

 

 

English:

 

I sat at an empty station all day, smoking a cigarette

All of today’s trains have gone by

I sat at an empty station all day long, humming

because you promised me you would come today

 

I sat at an empty station all day, smoking a cigarette

All of today’s trains have gone by

I sat at an empty station all day long, humming

because you promised me you would come today

 

Perhaps I got the date confused?

It seems like that maybe could have happened

Do you feel the same right now?

I don’t want to think about things like that

 

I sat at an empty station all day, smoking a cigarette

All of today’s trains have gone by

I sat at an empty station all day long, humming

because you promised me you would come today