My Room: Beautiful Insinuations from Exile
People who have seen the video clip of the song Otagh Man are usually so much taken aback by Googoosh's wonderful performance as Charles Chaplin that they tend to overlook the beautiful message and wonderful playing with words that remains quite inherent throughout the song. In a recent interview with Ms. Homa Ehsan Googoosh talks about this video: " This is a song about exile and homelessness and during the time I was practicing and recording this song in and out of the studio and whenever I was thinking about a suitable video clip for it, the one and only image which would come into my mind was one of Charles Chaplin having a bundle at the end of his stick moving from city to city sending this message,
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
The verbatim translation of the song is as follows:
I have traveled to very far away places in my life
so far as the night of Taj Mahal's tiredness
went down to the quite night of Shiva (Indian style chorus in the background)
my dinner table laden with bread and poems
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
city of Venice was so eye-catching
reminder of pirates and their ships
Rome with all those cardinals in it
was the city of springs of loneliness
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
moonlight filled mornings of Champs Elysées (French concertina in the background)
Versailles looked bluish-blue to my eyes
But reminded me of Salvador Dali's sleep (referring to sleep by dali)
City of Paris was the city of sleeplesness
Sleep by Dali: painted in Paris showing people separated from their roots
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
Madame Tussaudes was emptier than empty (some electric guitar in the background)
filled with void and empty faces
the dance of fog with those red buses
reminded me of carpet weaver's frames
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
the lady with a torch was right in front of me(referring to New York, and some rock tempo in the background)
a black somewhere was looking for a job
world collapased on black and red (referring to redskins or Indian American)
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
my pain was the nightmare of the painless (Ney , a traditional iranian flute in the background)
I am living with myself but how lifeless
the night of solitude for the kytes ( a kyte with no string left alone in the space)
was the night of the beginning and the end (referring to the birth and death)
No place was as comforting as my home
I could rest under no roof like my own room
The song has a gypsy rhythm (people who are always on the move) using the great efforts of world class Brasilian percussionist Cassio Duarte throughout the song.
