
Þræll (Slave) - transcript/translation

“Þræll”, the fifth song on Hatari’s Neyslutrans album, has been performed at concerts at least as early as Eurosonic in January 2019, and features Klemens in a master/slave relationship.

If you’d like to see other Hatari material transcribed/translated, feel free to drop an ask in my askbox!
Icelandic transcript

KLEMENS:

Ég er þræll

Já, ég veit

Þrællinn þinn

Tilbúinn

Við og við

finn ég til

En þú, refsarinn, deyfir mig


Rífur í mig,

tuskar mig til

slærð mig

utanundir

Taugakerfið yfirgaf mig

Sé ekki handa minna skil


Sama hvert ég fer

fylgir þú með mér

Þú veist

ég geri allt til að þóknast þér

Sama hvert ég hleyp

fylgir þú um leið

Bundinn mér

Geri allt til að þóknast þér

Geri allt til að þóknast þér


Þú ert þræll

Já, þú veist

Fanginn minn

Viðbúinn

Við og við

finn ég þig,

undirgefinn aumingi


Rífur í mig,

tuskar mig til

slærð mig

utanundir

Taugakerfið yfirgaf mig

Sé ekki handa minna skil

Sé ekki handa minna skil


Sama hvert ég fer

fylgir þú með mér

Þú veist

ég geri allt til að þóknast þér

Sama hvert ég hleyp

fylgir þú um leið

Bundinn mér

Geri allt til að þóknast þér

Geri allt til að þóknast þér


Transcription notes

“Bundinn mér” is not 100%, but I think that’s what it is. (It’s also not necessarily “Bundinn” with two n’s; “bundinn” is masculine while “bundin” is feminine, but you can’t hear any difference in the pronunciation in something like this, so the gender is ambiguous.)



English translation

KLEMENS:

I’m a slave

Yes, I know

Your slave

At the ready

Sometimes

it hurts

But you, the punisher, sedate me


You yank me,

throw me around

You slap me

on the cheek

My nervous system abandoned me

I can’t see a thing


Anywhere I go

you come with me

You know

I’ll do anything to please you

No matter where I run

you follow right away

Tied to me

I do anything to please you

I do anything to please you


You’re a slave

Yes, you know

My prisoner

Prepared

Sometimes

I find you,

a submissive weakling


You yank me,

throw me around

You slap me

on the cheek

My nervous system abandoned me

I can’t see a thing

I can’t see a thing


Anywhere I go

you come with me

You know

I’ll do anything to please you

No matter where I run

you follow right away

Tied to me

I do anything to please you

I do anything to please you


Translation notes

The literal translation of “Sé ekki handa minna skil” is “Can’t differentiate my hands”, but it’s an idiom that just means it’s so dark you can’t see anything, and I doubt Hatari is going for anything particular to hands here, hence why I just translated it as “I can’t see a thing”.

“Sama hvert ég fer fylgir þú með mér” (which I’ve rendered here as “Anywhere I go, you come with me”) is kind of an interesting line in Icelandic, because it’s not quite how you’d usually say someone follows or accompanies you, which would just be “Sama hvert ég fer fylgir þú mér”. They could just have put in the “með” for the sake of the rhythm, but more interestingly, “fylgir með” is how you describe, like, a product that you get for free with another product. Conveniently “you come with me” in English preserves both of those possible meanings, so I went with that here.

The “I’m a slave” and the “You’re a slave” verse respectively use the words “Tilbúinn” and “Viðbúinn”, which I’ve translated “At the ready” and “Prepared”. The missing nuance, besides how similar they sound, is that “Viðbúinn, tilbúinn” is basically the Icelandic equivalent of “Ready, steady” in English, as in “Ready, steady, go!” - so they feel very appropriately parallel.

“Sometimes I find you, a submissive weakling” ambiguously could be referring to “you” or “me” as the submissive weakling - in English it sounds more straightforwardly like it’s probably “you”, but it’s a bit more complicated in Icelandic because it’s in the nominative case; if it were actually an elaboration on “you”, it’d be in the accusative, as the object of the verb “finna”. Instead, it’s either addressing “you”, or a description of “me”.


Other rambling

Originally, when this song was performed throughout 2019, it did not have the “You’re a slave” verse, only a repeat of the “I’m a slave” verse. The new verse, debuting on Neyslutrans, certainly adds a layer to it! Is it a perspective flip to the other character in a potentially toxic relationship where it is implied Klemens has tried to run? Or are Klemens and his lover just both shameless switches and enjoy casually swapping which of them is the slave and affectionately calling each other submissive weaklings? Who knows.
