Текст песни The Allegheny (Rodney DeCroo) с переводом

What a filthy river! Lined with steel mills

and factories, to swim in it was to smell

for days the oily stink against your skin,

a nausea-twist in your stomach,

uneasy reminder of the river’s phlegmy,

dark-green clutch. It was as dangerous

as it was dirty. The bottom dug out

for gravel, unnaturally and unevenly deep,

held invisible currents, eddies, undertows

that could pull, suck and hold you down

until you drowned or throw you up again

to limb-flash, flail and suck for air.

Each summer it claimed a child

from the cancerous towns along its sides,

as if it were a angry, wounded god

demanding tribute. Each summer

we gathered there to fish for monstrous carp

and catfish no one would ever eat, to swim

and dunk each other beneath the blinding water,

to watch the rich kids carve into the current

white-tipped waves, bronzed bodies balanced

on single skis behind small, sleek powerboats.

By the docks we bobbed in water warm as blood,

the sunlight marching like fire across the oily surface

to burn away all but summer’s touch.

We swam beside the hulk of coal barges

black as the bible’s curse that tore the earth.

All summer we swam in it. What a filthy river!

Перевод песни The Allegheny