Alyona Alyona. We Won’t Lose Touch

The song We Won’t Lose Touch won the hearts of the Ukrainian public in the light of the Russian aggression which has led to frequent country-wide and local blackouts. In her song, Alyona Alyona touches upon this traumatic experience, expressing hope that human relationships can be stronger than any act of war.

We Won’t Lose Touch. Alyona Alyona

Many sad thoughts in my head that’s broke
You’re far away now, like a haze of smoke
Together we’re sitting there, but it’s mind’s joke
We won’t lose touch even when the light goes off

We won’t lose touch even when the light goes off
We won’t lose touch even when the light goes off
We won’t lose touch even when the light goes off
We won’t lose touch even when the light goes off

Let the earth face the sky
Your given promise will save you and I
And tightly driven into the stairs nail
Because together we’re going up all the way

And let the rough weekdays pour over us
And the sea waves wash our feet. Just
We are far away, I know it hurts sometimes
The sun falls asleep beyond the skyline

But our souls are naked in this sea with open hearts
If there is an evil root, we don’t pull it out of the ground
Bring me to my senses, if my thoughts are sick
‘Cause in one boat we live our stories

Let my love shine in your eyes
Let time pass and make you wise
Let the flames in our hearts warm us at the distance
What is merged together doesn’t lose existence!

Translated from the Ukrainian by Liliia Babych (Лілія Бабич)

The translation by Liliia Babych (Лілія Бабич), the student of Pavlo Tychyna Uman State Pedagogical University, took first place in the category “Translation of a Ukrainian Song into English” at the VIII Student Translation Contest “Translation as a Key to Cultural and Linguistic Worldviews,” held in March 2024 by the Department of Applied Linguistics, Comparative Language Studies and Translation at the Mykhailo Dragomanov Ukrainian State University.