ΤΙ ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΟΥΣΕ Ο ΓΚΑΤΣΜΠΙ

 TA ΤΡΑΓΟΥΔΙΑ ΤΟΥ ΜΕΓΑΛΟΥ ΓΚΑΤΣΜΠΙ

Τέσσερα τραγούδια της "θεόμουρλης " αμερικανικής εικοσαετίας 1920-1930, για τα οποία γίνεται μνεία στο αριστούργημα του Φ. Σ. Φιτζέραλντ "Ο μεγάλος Γκάτσμπι". Εκφράζουν τη επιθυμία για  ξέφρενη ζωή,  που κυριαρχούσε  στα ανώτερα στρώματα της αμερικανικής κοινωνίας λίγο μετά από τη λήξη του Α΄Παγκόσμιου Πολέμου, κάτι ανάλογο δηλαδή με όσα τραγελαφικά ζήσαμε εμείς στη χώρα μας επί τρεις δεκαετίες πριν να συμβεί το δικό μας Κραχ. 
Το έργο του Φιτζέραλντ αποτυπώνει αυτό  το πνεύμα γελοιοποιώντας έναν  κόσμο απ΄όπου απουσίαζε η πνευματικότητα και οι σοβαροί στόχοι ζωής, ενώ αποθεώνονταν   ο τυχοδιωκτισμός και η επιδεικτική επίδειξη πλούτου, που πλασάρονταν μέσα σ΄ένα αστραφτερό περιτύλιγμα λούσου και εμετικού  ρομαντισμού . 

ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 4

When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this we had left the Plaza for half an hour and were driving in a victoria through Central Park. The sun had gone down behind the tall apartments of the movie stars in the West Fifties, and the clear voices of girls, already gathered like crickets on the grass, rose through the hot twilight:
“I’m the Sheik of Araby.
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you’re are asleep
Into your tent I’ll creep ——”
  [Ακούστε το τραγούδι πατώντας εδώ:  Roaring 20s: California Ramblers - Sheik Of Araby, 1921 ]

“It was a strange coincidence,” I said.
“But it wasn’t a coincidence at all.”
“Why not?”
“Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.”
Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor.
“He wants to know,” continued Jordan, “if you’ll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over.”

***************

ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 5

The rain was still falling, but the darkness had parted in the west, and there was a pink and golden billow of foamy clouds above the sea.

“Look at that,” she whispered, and then after a moment: “I’d like to just get one of those pink clouds and put you in it and push you around.”

I tried to go then, but they wouldn’t hear of it; perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone.

“I know what we’ll do,” said Gatsby, “we’ll have Klipspringer play the piano.”

He went out of the room calling “Ewing!” and returned in a few minutes accompanied by an embarrassed, slightly worn young man, with shell-rimmed glasses and scanty blond hair. He was now decently clothed in a “sport shirt,” open at the neck, sneakers, and duck trousers of a nebulous hue.

“Did we interrupt your exercises?” inquired Daisy politely.

“I was asleep,” cried Mr. Klipspringer, in a spasm of embarrassment. “That is, I’d been asleep. Then I got up.. ..”

“Klipspringer plays the piano,” said Gatsby, cutting him off. “Don’t you, Ewing, old sport?”

“I don’t play well. I don’t — I hardly play at all. I’m all out of prac ——”

“We’ll go down-stairs,” interrupted Gatsby. He flipped a switch. The gray windows disappeared as the house glowed full of light.

In the music-room Gatsby turned on a solitary lamp beside the piano. He lit Daisy’s cigarette from a trembling match, and sat down with her on a couch far across the room, where there was no light save what the gleaming floor bounced in from the hall.

When Klipspringer had played The Love Nest[Ακούστε το τραγούδι πατώντας εδώ: "The Love Nest" (John Steel, 1920) - YouTube]

, he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in the gloom.

“I’m all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn’t play. I’m all out of prac ——”

“Don’t talk so much, old sport,” commanded Gatsby. “Play!”

“In the morning,

In the evening,

Ain’t we got fun——”

Outside the wind was loud and there was a faint flow of thunder along the Sound. All the lights were going on in West Egg now; the electric trains, men-carrying, were plunging home through the rain from New York. It was the hour of a profound human change, and excitement was generating on the air.

“One thing’s sure and nothing’s surer

The rich get richer and the poor get— children.

In the meantime,

In between time——”

As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams — not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

As I watched him he adjusted himself a little, visibly. His hand took hold of hers, and as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most, with its fluctuating, feverish warmth, because it couldn’t be over-dreamed — that voice was a deathless song.

They had forgotten me, but Daisy glanced up and held out her hand; Gatsby didn’t know me now at all. I looked once more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together.

AIN'T WE GOT FUN?

 [Οι στίχοι ]

Bill collectors gather

'Round and rather

Haunt the cottage next door

Men the grocer and butcher sent

Men who call for the rent

But within a happy chappy

And his bride of only a year

Seem to be so cheerful

Here's an earful

Of the chatter you hear,

"Every morning,

Every evening,

Ain't we got fun?

Not much money,

Oh, but honey,

Ain't we got fun?

The rent's unpaid dear,

We haven't a bus.

But smiles were made, dear,

For people like us.

In the winter, in the Summer,

Don't we have fun?

Times are bum and getting bummer

Still we have fun.

There's nothing surer,

The rich get richer and the poor get children.

In the meantime,

In between time,

Ain't we got fun!"

Just to make their trouble nearly double

Something happened last night

To their chimney a gray bird came

Mister Stork is his name

And I'll bet two pins

A pair of twins

Just happen'd in with the bird

Still they're very gay and merry

Just at dawning I heard,

"Every morning,

Every evening,

Don't we have fun?

Twins and cares dear come in pairs, dear,

Don't we have fun?

We've only started

As mommer and pop.

Are we downhearted?

I'll say that we're not!

Landlord's mad and getting madder.

Ain't we got fun?

Times are so bad and getting badder,

Still we have fun.

There's nothing surer,

The rich get richer and the poor get laid off!

In the meantime,

In between time,

Ain't we got fun!

ΚΕΦΑΛΑΙΟ 6

Daisy began to sing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, bringing out a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again. When the melody rose, her voice broke up sweetly, following it, in a way contralto voices have, and each change tipped out a little of her warm human magic upon the air.

“Lots of people come who haven’t been invited,” she said suddenly. “That girl hadn’t been invited. They simply force their way in and he’s too polite to object.”

“I’d like to know who he is and what he does,” insisted Tom. “And I think I’ll make a point of finding out.”

“I can tell you right now,” she answered. “He owned some drug-stores, a lot of drug-stores. He built them up himself.”

The dilatory limousine came rolling up the drive.

“Good night, Nick,” said Daisy.

Her glance left me and sought the lighted top of the steps, where Three O’clock in the Morning, a neat, sad little waltz of that year, was drifting out the open door. After all, in the very casualness of Gatsby’s party there were romantic possibilities totally absent from her world. What was it up there in the song that seemed to be calling her back inside? What would happen now in the dim, incalculable hours? Perhaps some unbelievable guest would arrive, a person infinitely rare and to be marvelled at, some authentically radiant young girl who with one fresh glance at Gatsby, one moment of magical encounter, would blot out those five years of unwavering devotion.

"Three O'Clock in the Morning"
 

Waltz Song with Chimes
Words by Dorothy Terriss [pseud. for Dolly Morse, 1890-1953]
Music by Julian Robledo, 1887-1940
Revised by Frank E. Barry 

Οι στίχοι
It's three o'clock in the morning,
We've danced the whole night thru,
And daylight soon will be dawning,
Just one more waltz with you,
That melody so entrancing,
Seems to be made for us two,
I could just keep right on dancing
forever dear with you.

There goes the three o'clock chime,
chiming rhyming
My heart keeps beating in time,
Sounds like an old sweet love tune,
Say that there soon will be a honeymoon.

It's three o'clock in the morning,
We've danced the whole night thru,
And daylight soon will be dawning,
Just one more waltz with you,
That melody so entrancing,
Seems to be made for us two,
I could just keep right on dancing
forever dear with you.