The meaning of the lyrics of the song ""Here you sat, Knave"" (Zdes sidel tyi, Valet) the performer of the song "Vladimir Vysotsky"

Here you sat, Jack

You have no luck

The cards are always against you

Our days together

Keep them in your soul

And forgive me for the cards, forgive me for the cards!

Now that I'm free, you're forgetting me

You've all crawled back to your families and homes

My comrades, for old times' sake

I'm having a heart-to-heart with you

Здесь сидел ты, Валет

Тебе счастия нет

Тебе карта всегда не в цвет

Наши общие дни

Ты в душе сохрани

И за карты меня, и за карты меня извини!

На воле теперь вы меня забываете

Вы порасползлись все по семьям в дома

Мои товарищи, по старой памяти

Я с вами веду разговор по душам

In Vladimir Vysotsky's song "You sat here, Jack", the lyrical hero addresses his cellmate, with whom he was connected by the bonds of prison brotherhood. Despite the seeming simplicity of the text, the song is filled with deep subtext and conveys a complex range of feelings.

"You sat here, Jack": an appeal to a former cellmate, perhaps younger and less experienced, as indicated by the address "Jack".

"You have no happiness": a phrase imbued with bitterness and fatalism. The hero seems to predict an unhappy fate for his comrade, connected with the criminal world and the inevitable return to prison.

"The card is always the wrong color for you": a metaphor describing the life of a person who is constantly unlucky. Card play here acts as a symbol of fate, in which the hero gets only bad cards.

"Our common days / Keep them in your soul": the hero's request to keep the memory of the time spent together in prison. Prison brotherhood, based on shared trials, is perceived by him as something valuable, real.

"Forgive me for the cards, forgive me for the cards!": the culmination of the song, in which the hero asks for forgiveness from his comrade. The word "cards" here takes on a double meaning: on the one hand, it is a reference to possible insults and misunderstandings that arose during card games in prison; on the other hand, it is a metaphor for the hero's whole life, his fate, for which he asks forgiveness from those he cares about.

In the final stanzas of the song, the hero addresses not a specific person, but all his former cellmates, whom fate has scattered around the world. He feels lonely and forgotten in freedom, he is drawn to "comrades in old memory", with whom he is connected by more than just a prison past.

"Now in the wild you forget me / You all crawled back to your families in your homes": bitterness and loneliness sound in these lines. The hero realizes that prison brotherhood often falls apart in freedom, where everyone has their own life.

"My comrades, from old memory / I have a heart-to-heart conversation with you": the last lines of the song sound like a cry from the heart of a lonely person who seeks understanding and sympathy. A "heart-to-heart conversation" with former cellmates becomes for him the only way to maintain a connection with the past and not lose himself in a new, unusual life in freedom.

The song "You sat here, Jack" is a poignant story about friendship, loyalty and loneliness, about how difficult it is for former prisoners to adapt to life in freedom and find their place in a world where no one is waiting for them.