You've got to hide your love away

Words and music by
JOHN LENNON AND PAUL McCARTNEY
Performed by THE BEATLES (1965)

John Lennon wrote this for the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein after he showed up bruised, having been beaten up by gay-bashers in London over the weekend. Perhaps it was also an apology for his having reduced Epstein to tears by calling him a "gay Jewboy".

Here I stand head in hand
Turn my face to the wall
If she's gone I can't go on
Feeling two foot small
Everywhere people stare
each and every day
I can see them laugh at me
And I hear them say

Hey you've got to hide your love away
Hey you've got to hide your love away

How can I even try?
I can never win
Hearing them, seeing them
In the state I'm in
How could she say to me
"Love will find a way?"
Gather round all you clowns
Let me hear you say

Hey you've got to hide your love away
Hey you've got to hide your love away

i treni di tozeur

WORDS and music by FRANCO BATTIATO,
ROSARIO COSENTINO and GIUSTO PIO
Performed by ALICE E BATTIATO

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This was the Italian entry for the 1984 Eurovision Song contest and, in my opinion, is one of the finest pop songs ever written. The lyrics are redolent of another time and another place - Tozeur is an oasis in the Tunisian Sahara. Lyrics from Mozart's The Magic Flute also turn up. Italian lyrics are below, English underneath.

Nei villaggi di frontiera guardano passar' i treni
le strade deserte di Tozeur
da una casa lontana tua madre mi vede
si ricorda di me delle mie abitudini.

E per un istante ritorna la voglia di vivere
a un'altra velocità
passano ancora lenti i treni per Tozeur.

Nelle chiese abbandonate si preparano rifugi
e nuove astronavi per viaggi interstellari
in una vecchia miniera distese di sale
si ricordo di me come un incantesimo

E per un istante ritorna la voglia di vivere
a un'altra velocità
passano ancora lenti i treni per Tozeur.


Nei villaggi di frontiera guardano passar'
i treni per Tozeur.



Translation:



In the villages on the border they watch
trains pass the deserted streets of Tozeur.
From a faraway house your mother watches me,
or so I remember, as I'm prone to doing

And for a moment the wish
to live at another speed returns -
he trains still pass slowly through Tozeur.

In abandoned churches,
There hideaways, and spacecraft for interstellar journeys
In an old mine bloated with salt
Or so I remember, as if I was under a spell.

And for a moment the wish
to live at another speed returns -
the trains still pass slowly through Tozeur.

In the villages on the border
They watch the trains for Tozeur.

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