Kirmen Uribe

Lagun bat (Haur kanta)

Bada gorroto dudan lagun bat
Zuhaitzean gora egin nahi dudanean
“ez, ez, ez, hobeto ez”, esaten dit,
“laprast eroriko zara lurrera”.

Bada gorroto dudan lagun bat.
Futbolean jolastu nahi dudanean
“ez, ez, ez, hobeto ez”, esaten dit,
“ipurdi azpitik sartuko dizute gola”.

Bada gorroto dudan lagun bat.
Gustuko neskarengana hurreratzean
“ez, ez, ez, hobeto ez”, esaten dit,
“ez du zurekin nahiko berak”.

Bada gorroto dudan lagun bat.
Anaia txikiari musu eman nahi diodanean
“ez, ez, ez, hobeto ez” esaten dit
“esnatu egingo da berehala”.

Bada gorroto dudan lagun bat.
Lagun horren izena Lotsa da.
"Ez, ez, ez, inola ez" esaten diot gauero
"bihar ez dizut kasurik egingo bada".

Hitzak: Kirmen Uribe
Musika: Mikel Urdangarin.

One Friend (Children Song)

There's a friend I hate.
Whenever I want to climb a tree
"No, no, no, better not" he says,
"you'll slip and fall to the ground'.

There's a friend I hate.
Whenever I want to play ball
"No, no, no, better not', he says,
"they'll get a goal in right under your butt".

There's a friend I hate.
As I go over to the girl I like
"No, no, no, better not" he says,
"she won't want to be with you".

There's a friend I hate.
When I want to kiss my little brother
“No, no, no, better not”, he says,
“he'll wake right up if you do”.

There's a friend I hate.
The name of this friend is Shame.
“No, no, no, no way,” I tell him nightly,
“come tomorrow, I will ignore you”.

Words: Kirmen Uribe
Music: Mikel Urdangarin.

Kirmen Uribe, Rafa Rueda, Mikel Urdangarin, Bingen Mendizabal

When poet Kirmen Uribe and singer songwriter Mikel Urdangarin went to New York in the early spring of 2003, the experience set off thought trains that over the next half dozen months crystallized in this CD book of poems and songs from the Basque Country. With musicians Bingen Mendizabal and Rafa Rueda and New York poet translator Elizabeth Macklin, they did six concert readings that took them to the Bowery, the Upper West Side, Greenwich Village, Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and the South Bronx, in Basque, English, and (in the South Bronx) Spanish.

After on of the readings, Uribe writes in the forward, a poet called Phillis Levin tells him about her experience of language: "She said that she'd heard of Euskara before as well, she'd seen things written in Basque. She'd looked them over and more than once had tried to read them, just to see if she could. She was wonderstruck at all the x's that turned up on the page. The language looks like a treasure map, she said to me. If you just forget the rest of the letters and focus on the x, it looks as if you could find out where the treasure is. I thought it was the most beautiful thing one could say about a language one didn't know, that it's the map to a treasure."

Zaharregia, Txikiegia agian

(too old, too small, maybe)

Kirmen Uribe: voice

Mikel Urdangarin: guitar and vocals

Bingen Mendizabal: violin

Rafa Rueda: guitars

Elizabeth Macklin: voice

Ibon Saenz de Olazagoitia: digital images

Mikel Valverde : illustrations:

Natxo Rodriguez: video