Mark Bernes – Dark Is the Night (Тёмная ночь)
From the film
Два бойца (Two Soldiers, 1943).
Mark Bernes (1911-1969) with a guitar, between two battles.
Тёмная ночь, Dark night. Только пули свистят по степи, Only bullets whistle across the steppe. Только ветер гудит в проводах, Only the wind hums through the wires, Тускло звезды мерцают, Dimly the stars flicker.
Lyrics and explanation
The song has its own page on Wikipedia. See Dark Is the Night (Soviet song) and the Russian version. Check Soundtimes.ru for a brief history and interesting facts. Definitely watch Songs from the film “Two Soldiers” performed by Mark Bernes (Первая Столица, 2015, 9 m).
Clips
Besides the original version, there’s also a video with historical photos (1942-1943). Here, a clip was chosen featuring images of both soldiers and Bernes.
Lyric clips
The song Tyomnaya notch with English translation here (2013) and below (2x). A clip with (only) Russian lyrics at Daily Motion; triple subtitles (with phonetic) at Bababooey (2019).
Performances
The original was never surpassed, but there’s no shortage of attempts. From Борис Гребенщиков (Boris Grebenshchikov; also a version with tanks and soldiers), Дмитрий Хворостовский (Dmitri Hvorostovsky), and Муслим Магомаев (Muslim Magomayev). More wartime photography in the performance by Ivan Kozlovskiy ( Songs of Wartime Years); see Wikipedia.
Basta added a beat (2011), and others came up with the same idea. A better idea was the tribute sample by ШЕFF (feat. Купер)/Bad Balance, in Питер – Я твой!
Here next to the lyrics is a whole list of artists who’ve attempted or tackled Тёмная ночь.
Home videos
Performances at a more modest level. Edward Timershin occasionally uses a trumpet, with the advantage that he doesn’t sing (2020). Nina Yakimenko has a uniform and an acoustic guitar (2019).
Check out this collaboration for #10песенПобеды (Территория Культуры Росатома, 2020), and definitely see this man with bayan in Adidas (2020).
Film and Bernes
The film Два бойца is available
online and also below. More on
Wikipedia (RU).
Mark Bernes also sang
Журавли (Zhuravli), but that’s a topic of its own. For now, see
Wikipedia (EN) for more.
Most of the music here is also in an
R1 playlist on YouTube (in order of release).
See also
Best Russian Music and
Russian Song Lyrics.
last updated 06-04-2021
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