
Ógleði (Nausea) - transcript/translation

I previously translated lyrics that a fan had received by e-mail from Hatari, while noting that when I actually listened to a live recording of the song it was basically completely unintelligible and the little I could discern didn’t actually match up with the lyrics as written.

Eventually, with a clearer live recording, I transcribed the lyrics that appeared to be being sung at Hatari’s concerts in 2019, which sadly seemed to cut entire verses of the e-mailed lyrics. Now, with the Neyslutrans album, there is finally a crystal-clear studio recording of “Ógleði”, and most of the full lyrics are back, though with some tweaks.
Icelandic transcript

KLEMENS:

Allt visnar í höndum mér

Allt visnar í höndum mér

Allt gránar og kuldinn sker

Þyngdin á herðum mér

 

CHORUS:

Hlandandi standandi andandi ógeði (ógeði ógeði ógeði…)

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)

Hlandandi standandi andandi ógeði (ógeði ógeði ógeði…)

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)

 

KLEMENS:

Allt sem skalf brotnaði líkt og gler

Það sem var inni í mér – það var ekki ég

 

Allt sem fyr augu ber

fúnaði undan mér

Hjarta mitt fjötrað er

Finn ég þó blindur sé

 

CHORUS:

Hlandandi standandi andandi ógeði (ógeði ógeði ógeði…)

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)

Brotnandi, grotnandi, spúandi ógeði (ógeði ógeði ógeði…)

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)

 

KLEMENS:

Allt sem skalf brotnaði líkt og gler

Það sem var inni í mér – það var ekki ég


CHORUS:

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)

Hrínandi vínandi þyrmandi ógleði (ógleði ógleði ógleði…)


KLEMENS:

Það var ekki ég

 

MATTHÍAS:

Þú ert svo gjörsamlega staðinn í stað

að þú sérð ekki lengur hlekkina, keðjurnar,

í hverjum þú danglar

Þú ert svo gjörsamlega staðinn í stað

að þú sérð ekki lengur hlekkina, keðjurnar

 
Transcription notes

The chorus is very hard to actually make out properly even on the Neyslutrans recording, so the lines I’ve transcribed here are as written in the original e-mailed lyrics, even though I think there may have been changes to them - for instance, the line I have as “Brotnandi, grotnandi, spúandi ógeði” line really sounds more like something that involves “Stingandi” (stinging) and two other words more similar to that, but I can’t make out the actual words there otherwise so I’m just not sure. Meanwhile, the “vínandi” really sounds like “rýnandi” (scrutinizing)? But again, not sure.


 
English translation

KLEMENS:

Everything withers in my hands

Everything withers in my hands

Everything goes gray and the cold pierces

The weight on my shoulders

 

CHORUS:

Pissing, standing, breathing filth (filth filth filth…)

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

Pissing, standing, breathing filth (filth filth filth…)

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

 

KLEMENS:

Everything that trembled shattered like glass

What was inside of me - it wasn’t me

 

Everything before my eyes

wasted away beneath my feet

My heart is in chains

I can feel it though I’m blind

 

CHORUS:

Pissing, standing, breathing filth (filth filth filth…)

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

Breaking, rotting, spewing filth (filth filth filth…)

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

 

KLEMENS:

Everything that trembled shattered like glass

What was inside of me - it wasn’t me

 

CHORUS:

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

Squealing, intoxicating, overwhelming nausea (nausea nausea nausea…)

 

KLEMENS:

It wasn’t me

 

MATTHÍAS:

You are so completely stuck in place

that you can no longer see the shackles, the chains,

in which you dangle

You are so completely stuck in place

that you can no longer see the shackles, the chains

 
Translation notes

(Largely borrowed from the previous post and another post I added later.)

This was a tough one to translate. As written, the chorus has a frantic, intense rhythm to it; each word is a dactyl (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed), with each line ending in ‘ógleði’ (nausea) or ‘ógeði’ (filth) and each other word in each line ending in ’-andi’ (which is the Icelandic equivalent of the verb ending -ing), and a lot of internal rhyme between the words in each line as well. The whole thing doesn’t sound nearly as effective when preserving the meaning but not the meter.

Further complicating things is that “vínandi” is not a verb at all! It looks like one, and fits into the rhythm, but it’s actually the Icelandic noun for alcohol; “andi” also means “spirit”, and “vínandi” is “wine spirit”. It doesn’t actually make grammatical sense to say “vínandi ógleði”; they’re deliberately sneaking this word in in spite of that because it totally works within that frantic rhythm. I went with ‘intoxicating’ because it would just make no sense at all in English to write “Squealing, alcohol, overwhelming nausea”. I don’t think “hlandandi” is actually a word either, but hland means urine and the -andi makes it sound like a verb. In theory “urining” would translate what they’re doing there, but it just sounds bizarre in English, so pissing it is.

“Þú ert svo gjörsamlega staðinn í stað að þú sérð ekki lengur hlekkina, keðjurnar, í hverjum þú danglar” is one of those lovely sentences that translate perfectly into English, largely word for word. (In Icelandic the definite article, equivalent of ‘the’, gets stuck onto the word itself as a suffix - hlekki becomes hlekkina, keðjur becomes keðjurnar - and “í hverjum þú danglar” are literally “in which you dangle”, in that order.)

However, in Icelandic, we don’t actually usually use this grammatical construct! The usual way would be to write “hlekkina, keðjurnar, sem þú danglar í” (“the shackles, the chains, that you dangle in”). In English there’s this whole thing about ending sentences in prepositions not being proper grammar (this is pretty dubious and originates with pretentious people a few hundred years ago who wanted English to be more like Latin), and the “in which…” sort of construction is commonly used in an effort to avoid that - but it’s completely accepted in Icelandic that sometimes sentences end in prepositions, and this “í hverjum…” construction is almost unheard of - you hear it sometimes, and it’s perfectly understandable, but it definitely sounds kind of quirky and unusual. Hatari are using it anyway there, but it’s not the normal way to say this. In some hard-to-explain way, I think it actually adds punch to the line. 

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Anonymous:

hey, firstly, love your blog ❤ you're a blessing to us hatari fans that don't speak icelandic. secondly, I was wondering if you ever elaborated on why "14 ár", "ógleði" and "helvíti" form a story? I've looked at the translations and tried to see it, but my reading comprehension isn't the best sadly (especially in English, aka my second language lol). I was wondering if you had already made a post about it and if you could link it, or if you were ever going to make a post at all? im really interested in seeing your point of view

I don’t think I’ve ever made a post about this, and don’t quite have a definitive take on it, but I’ve more or less settled on this:

The most straightforward way for them to form a story is of course if they feature the same characters. I remain confident in my take on “14 ár”: the Matthías and Klemens characters are in an abusive relationship, where “Matthías” is trapped as “Klemens” employs manipulation and gaslighting to guilt him into staying.

The most obvious way to go from there, then, is that these characters are the same characters in “Ógleði”. The latter is all about Klemens talking about everything crumbling, not being himself, and then Matthías commenting on how he’s so stuck in place he can’t see the chains he’s dangling in. Assuming the characters are the same, then this, to me, suggests that Matthías did finally tear himself free, and Klemens, the abuser, has been left feeling miserable, nauseous, like everything’s fallen apart, maintaining that the person who did all that wasn’t him. His misery is genuine - but now his former victim, rather than pitying and coming back to him like before, is able to look at him from the outside and see that his misery is ultimately self-inflicted, that he refuses to change and can’t even see that he’s the problem.

Then we have Helvíti, which is a lot more vaguely connected, and of course sung by Svarti Laxness rather than either Matthías or Klemens (though Klemens does backing vocals on live performances). However, the lyrics seem to be addressed to somebody, a ‘you’. I think it might make sense if this is the Klemens character, the abuser who refuses to change, who winds up in Hell, maddened by memories, sustained by pain, trying to cling to hope. Can’t quite work out much more than that, though.

