I grew deaf from the claps and ovations,
I grew blind from the starlets’ bright smiles,
Years I’ve catered to birds’ imitations,
Suffered from symphonies all the while.

Like through a sieve, filtered through me
To your souls flew a sound pure...
Stop! Here’s the one to whom my hopes drew me,
For whom all of my pain I endured.

So many years they whispered in me of moonbeams,
About silence someone merrily screamed,
Someone played on a saw - sawed my neck inside -
And I amplified, amplified, amplified!

Deep and grave as a tomb are his lows,
His highs cut like a blade cutting through.
He will show us today what he knows -
Well, and I can show a thing or two.

He strains singing, he’s gasping instead
Like a tired soldier before generals set,
And I stretch out my neck and head
Towards his face golden with sweat.

 
 
 
 

Suddenly I cry, "Don’t you know
What you’re singing? You tire - stop, please!
This is sugar and treacle you flow!
Audience, will you tell him to cease!"

 
 
 
 

So many years they whispered in me of moonbeams,
About silence someone merrily screamed,
Someone played on a saw - sawed my neck inside -
And I amplified, amplified, amplified!

Accuse me of what you desire
But against oneself one cannot try:
By vocation, I’m an amplifier
And I suffered, but amplified lies.

Then I moaned, and speakers squealed round,
And he choked my throat, pale in the face...
They unscrewed me then, they killed my sound,
Found another to put in my place.

 
 
 
 

He, the new one, will bear all with patience,
He is screwed on my neck, fits the size.
We are always replaced by replacements,
So that we will not bother the lies.

...I, and the other mike, and the stand
Lay together once, tight in one case
And they, laughing, made me understand
How glad he’d been that I was replaced.