【U2樂隊(duì)歌詞翻譯和解讀】IF God will nd his angels

2023年12月5日發(fā)(作者：逍遙游譯文)

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Nobody el here baby 其他人都跑了

No-one el here to blame 不要怪別人

No-one to point the finger 大家都沒有怪罪的意思

It's just you and me and the rain. 只有你知，我知，天知地知

Nobody made you do it 事是你親手做的

No one put words in your mouth. 話是你親口說的

Nobody here taking orders 你管不了我，我管不了你的時(shí)候

When love took a train heading south. 就是愛泯滅的時(shí)候（注釋1）

It's the blind leading the blond 現(xiàn)在是瞎子領(lǐng)著傻子（注釋2）

It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs. 鄉(xiāng)村歌曲里唱的就是這些東西（注釋3）

（注釋1）When love took a train heading south.

The expression "to head south" or "to go south" is an American idiomatic expression

meaning to fail, lo value, or go wrong. The expression originates from a combination of

visual conventions involving graphs and maps. The term is frequently u in business and

technical discussion.

The first recorded u of the expression "to head south" appeared in 1974, but in a

context that makes it clear that the expression was already a well-known one in financial

circles to indicate a decline in the stock market. U of the term ems to have spread

from business into technical discour, and it began to become very common in the early

1990s, perhaps as part of the general spread of computer jargon into everyday speech.

"Head south" was ud to describe any failure or collap, whether in a computer system,

a business model, or even a social situation. "Things were going fine until his ex-girlfriend

turned up," a speaker might say, "and that's when everything started to head south."

The origin of the phra "head south" ems to lie in the traditions of visual reprentation.

In a chart or graph, a decrea or decline is often reprented by a downward trend. For

instance, if sales of a product decrea, the line showing sales will begin to move

downward. This practice ties in with traditional symbolic systems which associate

downward movement with negative experiences: consider, for instance, the symbolic

directions in the expression the "ri and fall" of someone or something.

In cartography, south is traditionally reprented as down relative to the orientation of the

reader. As a result, "south" became a slang term for "down." Since "down" was associated

with negative experiences, the same applied to "south." The result was that "to head

south" or "to go south" became a term for declines in market figures, and from there

developed into a term for any kind of catastrophe.

（注釋2）It's the blind leading the blond

There's a common phra "the blind leading the blind", to describe a hopeless situation.

Like when my computer illiterate father tries to teach my mother how to u email.

Now there's also a common stereotype that blondes are dumb.

So basically he's just playing with the phra a little.

波諾在這里玩了一個(gè)文字游戲，圣經(jīng)里面有The blind leading the blind（瞎子領(lǐng)著瞎子）的說法，簡(jiǎn)單的說就是：外行領(lǐng)著外行，結(jié)果就是于事無補(bǔ)。

比如說：我爸爸不懂電腦，他卻非要教我媽媽收發(fā)電子郵件。

Blind這個(gè)詞被換成了blonde（金發(fā)美女），在西方，一般認(rèn)為金發(fā)美女徒有外表，不是很聰明，類似中文的“胸大無腦”。

我記得在美劇絕望的主婦第一季第17集，其中的一個(gè)女主角有這樣一句臺(tái)詞：Well, me

being pretty and therefore stupid, I forgot.（因?yàn)槲胰碎L(zhǎng)得漂亮，所以很傻，我忘了。）

The blind leading the blind

Meaning 含義

Uninformed and incompetent people leading others who are similarly incapable.

Origin 來源

This appears in the Bible, Matthew 15:14 - from Miles Coverdale's Bible, 1535:

Let they go, they are ye blynde leaders of ye blynde. Wha one blinde leadeth another,

they fall both i ye diche.

Biblical citations of commonly ud English phras usually tend to be earlier than tho

from other sources. In this ca the thought was probably inherited from the Upanishads -

the sacred Hindu treatis, which were written between 800BC and 200 BC and first

translated into English between 1816-19. From Katha Upanishad we have:

Abiding in the midst of ignorance, thinking themlves wi and learned, fools go

aimlessly hither and thither, like blind led by the blind.

（注釋3）It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs.

基本特征;特質(zhì);根本;基礎(chǔ) If you say that one thing is the stuff of another, you mean that

the first thing is a very important feature or characteristic of the cond thing, or that the

cond thing can be bad or built on the first thing.

The idea that we can be whatever we want has become the stuff of television

commercials.

每個(gè)人皆無所不能，這一理念已經(jīng)成為電視廣告的精髓。

Hey, if God will nd his angels如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

And if God will nd a sign如果上帝會(huì)顯靈

And if God will nd his angels 如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

Would everything be alright? 世事會(huì)有所改觀嗎？

God's got his phone off the hook, babe 上帝的電話聽筒沒掛好（注釋4）

Would he even pick up if he could? 他聽到了會(huì)接嗎？

It's been a while since we saw that child 好久都沒見到那個(gè)孩子

Hangin' round this neighbourhood. 在小區(qū)溜達(dá)了

See his mother dealing in a doorway 只見他母親挨家挨戶推銷商品

See Father Christmas with a begging bowl. 只見圣誕老人在挨家挨戶行乞（注釋5）

And Jesus' sister's eyes are a blister 基督妹妹的雙眼就像一個(gè)水泡

The High Street never looked so low. 光鮮的步行街從未顯得如此低俗（注釋6）

（注釋4）God's got his phone off the hook, babe 上帝的電話聽筒沒掛好

A synomym for "busy". Taken from a phone reference; when you leave a phone off the

hook, you get a "busy" signal. The phra is ud to convey that there were a lot of people

attending a particular event.

Hey, the club last nite was "off the hook!"

出現(xiàn)「Phone Off Hook (電話沒有掛上)」訊息並不是錯(cuò)誤。 這只是代表電話聽筒沒有掛上

(已拿起聽筒) 導(dǎo)致電話線路佔(zhàn)線。

（注釋5）See Father Christmas with a begging bowl. 只見圣誕老人在挨家挨戶行乞

這句是屬于對(duì)比，諷刺。本來是圣誕老人送禮物給別人，是施善者，現(xiàn)在世事顛倒，他卻成了別人施舍的對(duì)象。

（注釋6）The High Street never looked so low. 光鮮的步行街從未顯得如此低俗

這里應(yīng)該是雙關(guān)，high street 可以表示街道兩邊的高樓大廈，想象一下各地的步行街就知道了。Low, 既可以表示實(shí)物（這里是高樓），也可以說低俗。

這句話的意思應(yīng)該是日益商業(yè)化的社會(huì)變得越來越低俗，只為追求物質(zhì)，所以導(dǎo)致精神危機(jī),

如前文說的When love took a train heading south.

High Street (or the High Street) is a metonym for the generic name of the primary

business street of towns or cities, especially in the United Kingdom. It is usually a focal

point for shops and shopkeepers in city centers, and is most often ud in reference to

retailing.

High Street（或the High Street）是城鎮(zhèn)主要商業(yè)街通用的一個(gè)轉(zhuǎn)喻說法，可以直接稱為“商業(yè)街”，在英國(guó)尤為常用。High Street通常是市中心商店和商家最集中的地方，也經(jīng)常被用來指代零售業(yè)。

The equivalent in the United States, Canada and Ireland is Main Street, a term also

ud in smaller towns and villages in Scotland and parts of rural Australia. In Jamaica,

North East England and some ctions of Canada and the United States, the main

commercial district is Front Street. (Source: Wikipedia)

在美國(guó)、加拿大和愛爾蘭則多用Main Street來指代商鋪集中的商業(yè)街，蘇格蘭一些小鄉(xiāng)鎮(zhèn)和澳大利亞部分郊區(qū)也用這個(gè)說法。在牙買加、英格蘭東北部以及加拿大和美國(guó)部分地區(qū)，主要的商業(yè)區(qū)則用Front Street表示。

It's the blind leading the blond 現(xiàn)在是瞎子領(lǐng)著傻子

It's the cops collecting for the cons. 警匪一家（注釋7）

So where is the hope and 那希望到哪兒去了？

Where is the faith and the love? 信仰和愛都到哪兒去了？

What's that you say to me 你跟我說什么來著？

Does love light up your Christmas tree? 愛可以照亮你的圣誕樹？

The next minute you're blowing a fu 話音剛落，你就把保險(xiǎn)絲燒壞了（注釋8）

And the cartoon network turns into the news. 卡通頻道也被換成了新聞播報(bào)（注釋9）

（注釋7）It's the cops collecting for the cons. 警匪一家

字面上的意思是：現(xiàn)在的世道是警察為匪徒收錢。艾爾 帕西諾 1973年的電影Serpico（沖突）講的就是警匪互相勾結(jié)，腐敗的警察向匪徒收取保護(hù)費(fèi)，從而對(duì)其睜一只眼閉一只眼。當(dāng)然，繼上句圣誕老人行乞后，這句歌詞又描述了一次世事顛倒，主持正義的警察淪為匪徒的作惡工具。

（注釋8）The next minute you're blowing a fu 話音剛落，你就把保險(xiǎn)絲燒壞了（注釋8）

這里指的是上句所說的“愛”只是一種幻覺，圣誕節(jié)是關(guān)于基督復(fù)活，圣誕老人行善，也就是宣揚(yáng)“愛”的節(jié)日。西方的小孩子稍微長(zhǎng)大一點(diǎn)后，就發(fā)現(xiàn)什么圣誕老人，什么襪子之類的東西都是騙人的鬼把戲，他會(huì)覺得被騙了（后面歌詞提到了lie），于是長(zhǎng)久以來的信仰開始動(dòng)搖。

保險(xiǎn)絲壞了，指的就是幻覺破滅，回到現(xiàn)實(shí)。

（注釋9）And the cartoon network turns into the news. 卡通頻道也被換成了新聞播報(bào)

Sunday Bloody Sunday也有一句類似的歌詞：When fact is fiction and TV reality（當(dāng)事實(shí)成為虛幻，電視成為現(xiàn)實(shí)）

卡通代表的是理想，純潔，美好，而新聞代表的是成人世界，人性中負(fù)面的東西。

那么這句歌詞想表達(dá)的就是：理想破滅，回歸現(xiàn)實(shí)。

Why Do People Watch Anime? 人們?yōu)楹我磩?dòng)漫卡通？

Well for me, while living in the real world we often run into daily troubles, obstacles and

sometimes I got my own dreams to escape my harsh life. So, it will never happen

immediately altered to the fantasy worlds

Here is my list of top ten reason why we all love cartoons.

1. Cartoons have great moments- there by we treasure them. It may be a cartoon we

know in our childhood (such as The Angry Beavers or the Real Ghostbusters).

卡通輕松-新聞嚴(yán)肅

2. No matter what the show is about, all cartoons have great humorous moments. They

would not call it a cartoon if it had no humor.

卡通帶來歡笑 – 新聞帶來痛苦

4. People may say that a lot of cartoons are so little kids. But when it comes to remebering

the times when "we" were kids, it's no harm to try to watch them over and over again.

卡通純潔美好 – 新聞消極負(fù)面

下面這段是一個(gè)外國(guó)人所寫的博客：That little quote, from U2’s song "If God Would Send

His Angels" feels entirely appropriate right now. I could not sleep last night, so I just sat

there in bed, switching between CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. That is when I really

became aware of the absurdity of this “modern age” that we find ourlves in; I was falling asleep to a War, broadcasted Live and in Real Time all over the world. Military Analysts,

Wolf Blitzers, gas masks, and air raid sirens filled the screen, and I slept to the sounds of

a city beginning to fall. When I woke up, the screen was painted with the familiar green of

the night scope that became so popular during the first Gulf War, and I opened my eyes

just in time to e tiny white tracers going from Earth to sky, and again from sky to Earth. I

felt like I was watching a video game, or a cartoon movie, but this is reality, and that fact

frightens me. The line following the quote in the title of this blog is, “If God will nd his

Angels/And if God would nd a sign…” and I think now, more than ever, the world needs

to re-evaluate, and start to wonder what God is thinking up there, when so many horrible

things are done in His name. I shudder to think how many have died, “In the name of

God.” "…And the cartoon network turns into the news…" -U2- 這句引語來自U2的歌曲If

God Would Send His Angels，用它來描述現(xiàn)在再適合不過。我昨晚失眠了，所以我就干脆坐在床上，不是看CNN, 就是看MSNBC,或福克斯新聞。也就是在這個(gè)時(shí)候我才真正意識(shí)到我們所處的時(shí)代有多么荒唐。我在全球的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)畫面，現(xiàn)場(chǎng)報(bào)道和實(shí)時(shí)追蹤中睡了過去。軍事分析家，Wolf Blitzers, 防毒面具，空襲警報(bào)充斥了電視屏幕，我在城市的倒塌中漸漸入睡。我醒來的時(shí)候，電視屏幕被涂上熟悉的綠色---夜視鏡的顏色，這種顏色在第一次海灣戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中很常見。我剛睜開雙眼就看到又小又白的曳光彈升天，然后又從天而降。我感覺就像是在觀看電子游戲，或是卡通電影，但是這就是現(xiàn)實(shí)，這一事實(shí)著實(shí)讓我恐懼。現(xiàn)在我覺得，從來沒這么強(qiáng)烈地覺得，世界需要重新審視，開始搞明白上帝的真實(shí)想法，如果這么多惡行都是借上帝之名實(shí)施的話。一想到多少人是在“上帝之名下”死的，我就感到心驚膽寒。

If God will nd his angels 如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

And if God will nd a sign 如果上帝會(huì)顯靈

Well if God will nd his angels 如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

Where do we go? 我們的歸宿在哪里？

Where do we go? 我們的歸宿在哪里？

Jesus never let me down 基督從未讓我失望

You know Jesus ud to show me the score. 基督向我展示過他的豐功偉績(jī)

Then they put Jesus in show business 此后娛樂圈便出現(xiàn)了基督的身影（注釋10）

Now it's hard to get in the door. 現(xiàn)在的娛樂圈可不好進(jìn)

It's the stuff, it's the stuff of country songs鄉(xiāng)村歌曲里唱的就是這些東西

But I guess it was something to go on. 不過我覺得這種情況還會(huì)持續(xù)下去

Hey, if God will nd his angels 如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

I sure could u them here right now 她們肯定能在這里幫上大忙

Well, if God will nd 如果上帝會(huì)派遣天使下凡

Where do we go? 我們的歸宿在哪里？

Where do we go? 我們的歸宿在哪里？

（注釋10）Then they put Jesus in show business 此后娛樂圈便出現(xiàn)了基督的身影

這句是說基督被商人利用，成為賺錢工具。基督代表的是一種精神信仰，現(xiàn)在被淪落為物質(zhì)主義的附庸，很明顯指的是社會(huì)物質(zhì)化導(dǎo)致的精神危機(jī)。同時(shí)，也是暗指娛樂圈的虛偽。以“愛”之名，用“愛”來包裝自己，實(shí)質(zhì)只是為了實(shí)現(xiàn)自己的商業(yè)利益，滿足自己的物欲。

這首歌整體講的就是波諾的信仰迷失或隱射人類整體的精神危機(jī)。他感覺上帝宣揚(yáng)的“愛”和“以上帝之名”施行的惡，兩者差別太大，出現(xiàn)心理落差，導(dǎo)致產(chǎn)生了精神困惑。上帝之愛或善的力量在消退，他對(duì)自己說，不怪別人。因?yàn)楸娙硕继幱谛叛雒允У臓顟B(tài)，無論是領(lǐng)袖還是信徒，他們變成了瞎子。一般來說，鄉(xiāng)村音樂描寫的都是悲劇性的愛，現(xiàn)在眾人這樣一種精神狀態(tài)仿佛鄉(xiāng)村音樂描寫的東西，是一種悲劇。

上帝之愛或善的力量在消退，波諾并沒有絕望，于是他祈求上帝派遣天使下凡，希望得到某種神力的介入，某種幫助。或是一種神啟。激勵(lì)人們重新振作起來，重新充滿希望。

一邊是信仰迷失，一邊又充滿希望，這是一種很矛盾，很無奈的心態(tài)。波諾在歌曲結(jié)尾處的長(zhǎng)嘯中可以很好地展現(xiàn)這一點(diǎn)。

My interpretation is that the singer is lost in terms of faith, speaking to himlf that there is

no-one to blame, no-one put words in his mouth. "love took a train heading south" refers

to a love of god i think; it's a very country sounding metaphor.

Then: the blind leading the blond. Again, some lyrical humor, and the suggestion that

everyone is lost, leaders and followers alike.

Then the kicker: "it's the stuff of country songs". Here I think he acknowledges his

previous homage to country style lyrics while it references country music's stereotypical

theme of tragedy/tragic love.

So it appears that love (love of God/love amongst humankind) is on a path (train) towards

tragedy, and no-one has the "vision" to avoid the inevitable outcome.

So the singer desperately pleas for "God to nd his angels", asking for some kind of

divine intervention, some help. Or a sign. A light to inspire, to lift people up, something to

give hope.

The singer is desperately hoping that there is "method to the madness". He hopes that

somewhere, sometime, somehow there will be justice. He is begging for God to reveal his

plan, implement his plan, or at least give the desperate a sign that indeed there is a plan,

that there is cau for hope.

波諾急切希望存在一種當(dāng)前精神危機(jī)的解決之道

JESUS QUOTES

quotations about Jesus Christ

Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?

The Blood of Jesus whispers peace within.

EDWARD HENRY BICKERSTETH, Peace, Perfect Peace

Jesus never let me down

You know Jesus ud to show me the score

Then they put Jesus in show business

Now it's hard to get in the door.

BONO, "If God Will Send His Angels"

There's not a child so small and weak

But has his little cross to take,

His little work of love and prai

That he may do for Jesus' sake.

CECIL FRANCES ALEXANDER, We are but Little Children Weak

The greatest need in the world is the transformation of human nature. We need a new heart that will not have lust and greed and hate in it. We need a heart filled with love and

peace and joy, and that is why Jesus came into the world.

BILLY GRAHAM, Just As I Am

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