MAMA...
Over the last several years, as I have listened to Russian pop music and learned a little bit about Russian culture, I have been moved by the Russian devotion to mama.  I'm hard pressed to think of any American songs which express love and appreciation for mama, but there are scores of Russian songs which do.  Again and again in these songs, sons and daughters express their deeply felt emotions for mama:  the person who waits, who listens, who forgives, who remembers.  Mama is the person to turn to in times of trouble, who won't judge, but is simply there to offer tenderness and her caressing hand.

Here are snippets of some of these songs (they are, of course, much more poetic in the original Russian), along with MIDI versions of them.
Listen to midi of Generalyi... "You knew the caresses of your birthmother,
But I knew them only in a dream.
In my childlike golden dreams mother sometimes appeared to me.
Oh, mama, if I were to find you, my fate would not be so bitter."
                                         "Generali peschannikh kar'erov"
                                               by Neschastnyi Sluchai
Listen to Kolshik midi "And it's easy in my soul, like the deepest peace of mind,
To meet mother is my one desire...
Don't judge me, mama,
I lived only by one thing---
that I knew you waited for me..."
                                           "Kolshik"
                                                by Mikhail Krug
Listen to "S Dnem Rozhdeniya, Mama" midi "You already have teenage grandchildren,
Life is hard like pain and simple like a gamma,
Forgive the pain, forgive the trouble,
I love you, dear mama."
                                          "S Dnem Rozhdeniya, Mama"
                                               by Dmitri Malikov
Listen to "Mama" (Gazmanov) midi "I sometimes fear that sadness will settle in my heart
And I vow to return
To those childhood years.  I know I would give everything
To be with you eternally, always.
Mama, I pine for you,
Mama, I walk and meet the train,
Mama, how sad it is for me without your warm hands."
                                            "Mama"
                                                  by Oleg Gazmanov
"I"m someplace where my child-like good spirits are,
I'm having a conversation with mama.
I tell her about my sins,
About black troubles and about blue dreams...

And it seemed to me that your smile, your hand,
Would always be right beside me.
When I'm afraid, I fly to you.
'Mama,' I cry in a dream."

Do you remember, Mama?  Of course you remember
A summer evening with the glow of a fire.
You ran for a long time along the platform,
A fast train carried me away to Life."
                                              "Pomnish, Mama"
                                                      by Golubye Berety
More songs about mama
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