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de_eekhoornThis is my singable translation of the song Zeur niet! (Don’t complain!) by Annie M. G. Schmidt, set to music by Harry Bannink.
Annie M. G. Schmidt (1911-1995) was a Dutch writer whose children’s books are still very well known. Her work for adults is a lot less known these days and often discounted, but at her best it’s brilliant, combining an undauntable sense of humor, a somewhat world-weary compassion, and absolutely scathing social commentary.
This song lists some things she’d prefer you do instead of complaining, and some of the reasons one might have for wanting to complain nevertheless. It is, I’m afraid, one of the things that give the best sense of who the Dutch are as a people: I’ve long wanted to be able to show it to non-Dutch speakers. The version linked is sung by Conny Stuart, one of the greats of Dutch song and a long-time interpreter of Schmidt.
The translation is, as per usual when I do these things, a compromise: it mostly rhymes, it mostly fits the tune, and it mostly makes sense. I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.
Connie sings for you
When you’re tired
When you’re old
When you’re shivering and miserably cold
When your husband’s on the pier with some young lady
When the spirit of conjugal love is fading
When your in-laws are once more demanding money
When your father’s upright posture’s getting funny
When it’s snowing, when it’s misty
When there’s black ice and your lover is sadistic
When all this becomes your lot
Till you’re asking “Why me, God?”
Slam the doors in rage and pain
Rend your cocktail dress in twain
But don’t complain…
Cry in your bed
Bite into your sheets
Curse out everybody, scream in the streets
But don’t complain!
Kick out and struggle, don’t be a lady
and break the windowpane with the tea caddy
But don’t complain!
Get your biggest scissors and cut the velours
Call the town solicitor’s wife a whore
Do all that and more
Make a large furore
But don’t complain!
When you’re down
When you’re ailing,
When you’ve rheumatism and your body’s failing,
When the rain is coming down right through the roof
And your children are laid up with whooping cough
And there’s absolutely no food in the fridge
And the mice are dead of hunger in the kitchen
When your Austin hits a lamppost
When your cat keeps throwing up over the mailpost
When you’re poorer than a church mouse
Have to scrub floors in a workhouse
Yes all that can come to be
In full color and HD
Don’t bother me…
Jump in the canal
Cut off your hair
Push little old ladies right off the stairs
But don’t complain!
Start learning judo
Learn striptease dance
Empty your revolver into J. D. Vance
But don’t complain!
Go to the post office and spit through the ticket booth
Have a stroke or even just go to bed
With the cardinal, hold the press in thrall,
But don’t complain!
Take to drinking, hate all your cronies,
Break in at Tommy Tune’s, steal all his Tonys
But don’t complain!
Go flog your child,
go squeeze your budgie
say to the general “You are a pussy”
But don’t complain!
(Chorus)
Oh my goodness what a tone to take
Oh my goodness this is far too much to take
Do absolutely all, become a cannibal,
But don’t complain,
don’t complain,
(Chorus)
don’t complain,
don’t complain,
don’t complain!
Annie M. G. Schmidt (1911-1995) was a Dutch writer whose children’s books are still very well known. Her work for adults is a lot less known these days and often discounted, but at her best it’s brilliant, combining an undauntable sense of humor, a somewhat world-weary compassion, and absolutely scathing social commentary.
This song lists some things she’d prefer you do instead of complaining, and some of the reasons one might have for wanting to complain nevertheless. It is, I’m afraid, one of the things that give the best sense of who the Dutch are as a people: I’ve long wanted to be able to show it to non-Dutch speakers. The version linked is sung by Conny Stuart, one of the greats of Dutch song and a long-time interpreter of Schmidt.
The translation is, as per usual when I do these things, a compromise: it mostly rhymes, it mostly fits the tune, and it mostly makes sense. I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.
Connie sings for you
When you’re tired
When you’re old
When you’re shivering and miserably cold
When your husband’s on the pier with some young lady
When the spirit of conjugal love is fading
When your in-laws are once more demanding money
When your father’s upright posture’s getting funny
When it’s snowing, when it’s misty
When there’s black ice and your lover is sadistic
When all this becomes your lot
Till you’re asking “Why me, God?”
Slam the doors in rage and pain
Rend your cocktail dress in twain
But don’t complain…
Cry in your bed
Bite into your sheets
Curse out everybody, scream in the streets
But don’t complain!
Kick out and struggle, don’t be a lady
and break the windowpane with the tea caddy
But don’t complain!
Get your biggest scissors and cut the velours
Call the town solicitor’s wife a whore
Do all that and more
Make a large furore
But don’t complain!
When you’re down
When you’re ailing,
When you’ve rheumatism and your body’s failing,
When the rain is coming down right through the roof
And your children are laid up with whooping cough
And there’s absolutely no food in the fridge
And the mice are dead of hunger in the kitchen
When your Austin hits a lamppost
When your cat keeps throwing up over the mailpost
When you’re poorer than a church mouse
Have to scrub floors in a workhouse
Yes all that can come to be
In full color and HD
Don’t bother me…
Jump in the canal
Cut off your hair
Push little old ladies right off the stairs
But don’t complain!
Start learning judo
Learn striptease dance
Empty your revolver into J. D. Vance
But don’t complain!
Go to the post office and spit through the ticket booth
Have a stroke or even just go to bed
With the cardinal, hold the press in thrall,
But don’t complain!
Take to drinking, hate all your cronies,
Break in at Tommy Tune’s, steal all his Tonys
But don’t complain!
Go flog your child,
go squeeze your budgie
say to the general “You are a pussy”
But don’t complain!
(Chorus)
Oh my goodness what a tone to take
Oh my goodness this is far too much to take
Do absolutely all, become a cannibal,
But don’t complain,
don’t complain,
(Chorus)
don’t complain,
don’t complain,
don’t complain!
