“Nautilus Pompilius” is a classic Russian rock band. It appeared in 1982 in Sverdlovsk. This band from a Russian province gained great fame. Also I should say that it worth its popularity. Songs of “Nautilus” are beautiful and thoughtful. The instruments they used were: guitars, bass, drums, keyboards, sax. Also the flute and violoncello were used for some of them. Well written poetical lyrics performed with nice vocal accompany melodious music. These three elements: music, text and vocal, - are the only really meaningful aspects of any rock song. All of the mentioned elements were done well by “Nautilus Pompilius”.
Some of the compositions are really unique because they mix nice melody with fast tempo (though these songs can’t be defined as power metal). I dare to say that some songs from the repertoire of this band may be used at the disco (not only those compositions which are slow-burning ballads). Of cause we are not talking about classic electronic club music. Nothing like to “The Prodigy” as well. If you are intrigued with my words and want to get to know what I mean, I’d like to advise you the following songs: “Матерь богов” (“Mother of the Gods”), “Настасья” (“Anastasia”), “Атлантида” (“Atlántida”), “Эта музыка будет вечной” (“This music will be eternal”), “Том ждёт” (“Tom is waiting”).
“Nautilus Pompilius” is considered to be a soft rock band. There are many slow compositions with beautiful melodies. They created lots of fast paced songs with nice melodies as well. There are a lot of lyrics about love. Also love is not the only topic of their songs. Some of them are devoted to social problems, some of them are philosophical, and some are a kind of narrated stories in the song form (also with moral or philosophical meaning).
I’d like to show you several translated samples of the lyrics by “Nautilus Pompilius” (I won’t translate the whole songs, just some parts of them to give you a notion of the texts of this band): “We will live together in a little house Near a river with no name. No one will be pained That left the sands.”
“You take off an evening gown Face-off to the wall,
And I see fresh scars
On your velvet back. I want to cry because of the pain Or fall into sleep.
Where are your wings Which I liked so much?”
“See the shine of brilliant ways. Hear the crisp of them. Look at those traces left by Gods. To follow them one needs golden feet”.
All of the songs by “Nautilus Pompilius” are in Russian language. That means that semantic part of the songs is missed for those listeners which do not know that language. Of cause the meaning of the song is an important thing when we talk about rock. Let me provide you a sample from the literature that shows that good songs worth listening even if you do not understand the words of the lyrics. The hero of the novel “Nausea” by Jean-Paul Sartre listened to the beautiful song performed in some language that he didn’t knew. He was not able to understand the words, but it made that song even more attractive. It was mysterious while he could not understand the lyrics, and that is why he liked it even more.
