Valentin Gaft's poem addressed to Yuri Vizbor on contemporary pop music

Pop music rakes our souls with shrapnel,
You cannot haul it into court for that.
Part of a generation grew up on nonsense,
And a new one is being born in delirium…
Oh, “Forest Sun”, wondrous song!
How we sang in captivity, we oddballs!
Freedom came, and more interesting became
The squeaky freaks, the peddlers of vulgarity…
Words are nothing, there are only the howls of degeneration.
The more unwell one is, the more famous.
Whoever comes out to sing without any embarrassment,
Without conscience, without fear, without trousers.
Where is the song one would want to sing?
Where are the words one would never forget?
Well, what is there to bawl about a little piece of the body
Which very much wants to live with someone?
From the television screen, as from a restaurant,
Adding a touch of hoarseness for greater gravity,
They pour salt on our wounds by the hundredweight,
As on cabbage or on cucumbers.
In a dressing-gown a sexless figure
Has started singing, having bared itself for no reason…
It is revolting. Sing to us, Yura,
Of feminine warmth and the courage of men.

Literal translation

Valentin Gaft, to Yury Vizbor