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In 1972, he wrote the song "Dziwny jest ten świat" ("Strange Is This World"), a very important protest song. While I am not so surprised a Polish musician musically protested, I find it fascinating that Poland really liked him at the time. The Monks, a band of American GIs that performed in West Germany in the 1960s, were very experimental and ahead of their time, but hardly anyone paid them much mind. Look them up, they're fantastic ("Monk Chant" is the best). If the West didn't pay much attention to such experimental music, it's a bit surprising that Poland took a shining to Niemen, despite his apparent godliness.
Naturally, I am all about Communist era history and while I was aware that communism had a very tenuous grasp on Poland, this just takes the cake. I was reading in the book "Europe, Europe: Forays Into a Continent" by Hans Magnus Enzensberger. He writes that a Scandinavian correspondent stationed in Poland said, "The Russians long ago accepted the fact that socialism doesn't have a chance in Poland, and that they have to put up with the traditionalist, conservative, clerical neighbor. They have accepted that freedom of opinion exists here to a degree that is unparalleled in the Eastern Bloc, including Hungary" (203). The protests in Poland are what sparked the 1956 Revolution in Budapest, so this connects the cultural and historical dots. Czesław is fascinating because he is so ahead of his time and almost light years ahead for the Eastern Bloc.
As my friend Paweł described him, Czesław is "a bit like Hendrix, like Freddy, like Pink Floyd...some of his songs are out of this world." And I will no longer tease you with descriptions. I'm including the lyrics to the song "Dziwny jest ten świat", thanks to Paweł's translation:
Strange is this world
gdzie jeszcze wciąż miesci się wiele zła
where still there is so much evil
i dziwne jest to że od tylu lat
and it is strange that for so many years
człowiekiem gardzi człowiek
man has had so much contempt for one another
Dziwny ten świat świat ludzkich spraw
Strange is this world of human affairs
czasem aż wstyd przyznać się
sometimes one is ashamed to admit it
a jednak często jest ze ktoś
but it happens often that somebody
słowem złym zabija tak jak nożem
with a bad word kills like with a knife
Lecz ludzi dobrej woli jest więcej
But there are more people with good intentions
i mocno wierzę w to że ten świat
and I strongly believe in it that this world
nie zginie dzięki nim
won’t perish thanks to them
nadszedł już czas najwyższy czas
it is the highest time
nienawiść zniszczyć w sobie
we destroyed hatred in ourselves
{Edit : I realize the embedded video no longer works. Visit this video instead for his televised performance.]
