We feel so comfortable in our own skin today that we willingly start looking back at our past and enjoy the songs that seemed rather silly back then. There’s no shame anymore. And sometimes, the worse it is, the better it sounds.
“We do what we want / some make love and others down whiskey at the bar,” Dinamika sang in 1994. And indeed, you could hear lustful female moans in many of the songs. The bar of decency was not that high at the time; thus, we can find a lot of open eroticism and steamy passions in the popular music of the time.
I chose five pop music albums released in Kaunas in 1994 for this spring-like topic. The lyrics of the songs (and even the composition of these bands) show the different models of male and female relationships, understanding of romance and love, and ultimately, they’re just fun to listen to because it’s about us after all.
Ekspresas Pirmoji naktis (The First Night)
Like it or not, this hit cannot be erased from the history of Lithuanian pop music. Every time I hear it, I’m amazed that such a song actually exists. Of course, the radio did not play it – legend says that it happened once when a listener called and asked for this song, and an unsuspecting host played it on Lithuanian radio – but the audience in the concerts held in the various cities and towns across Lithuania knew it by heart and sang in unison.
“The First Night” is a great title for a debut single and album. After that, the male duo became instantly famous. If you listen closer, the synthesizer melody is quite sad, yet the most important thing here is, of course, the lyrics that very thoroughly describe sexual intercourse with all the physiological details. The plot (the girl is a possible minor) recited in a rather calm manner could make us think about actions bordering on criminal today. The line “no one is to blame / you wanted it yourself” reminds us of another scandalous hit “Tomas” by G&G Sindikatas.
When you started kissing me,
I knew you liked me.
And even though you’re young, you offered to me
to go to bed with you.
Anyway, the first night seems to go well because soon the band records “The Second Night”, where they talk about meeting the same girl with a faster beat and try to accurately replicate the track’s recipe for success and past sexual experience.
Although the songs are fun and hilarious, the fact that Ekspresas was truly interested in female virginity raises some eyebrows. The album released a year later opens with the song “Tu nesakyk, kad aš tau antras” (Don’t Tell Me I’m Your Second) (don’t tell lies, don’t act cool).
The band does have some wordy and comical lyrics and unexpected rhymes. For example, in the 1998 hit “Hey hey gali gali” (Hey Hey, You Can You Can) – the giddy music video is available on YouTube – the action takes place on the pile of hay and the rhyme goes “chamas-pravalas-mamai-dainavo” (churl-failure-sang-to mother).
“We both drank fresh cow’s milk then / When evening came we ate pork”
In this song, the girl remains hurt again, with tears in her eyes, because the young man who took advantage of her is not going to marry her.
Dinamika Meilės žaidimai (Love Games)
Another duet, Dinamika, offers a wider romantic range in the 1994 album Meilės žaidimai (Love Games). Of course, today’s listener will also be surprised by the straightforward male voice talking about jealousy, possessiveness, and aggression in the song “Tu mano” (You’re Mine).
Don’t forget how jealous I am
If another smiles at you, I am getting snide,
I will never give you away to someone,
And my fists will his fate decide.
You can distract yourself from lewdness with the “Techno polka apie meilę” (Techno Polka About Love) which describes a girl picking flowers for her beloved and singing songs. And the hit song “Tu palinkėk man gero vėjo” (Wish Me Good Luck) describes a breakup after a relationship that lasted a little longer (more than one night!) when a disappointed girl leaves her boyfriend.
I don’t want to live
How I used to live
Listening to all the promises
That I know by heart.
16 Hz, Jei pavargai… (If You Got Tired)
The brother duo 16 Hz, named after the sound frequency, that only a trained ear can hear, released their first album in 1994. I don’t know how much of a trained ear was required to listen to this music, but the fact is that the band is still active today and even had its own tribute band until recently named 16 Hz Tribute.
These lyrics surprise you with their poetic and traditional Lithuanian lyricism. Here, the plot is somewhat different: a thoughtful guy chooses to be alone in a song “Tenai” (Out There).
“You asked me to stay, but I didn’t want to / Something was weighing on my heart”
The album features more traditional love lyrics, with tenderness and longing instead of vulgarity. A guy dreams of kissing a girl’s hair and touching her cheek, but she is already with someone else.
The duo used poet Petras Keidošius – who has been publishing his poetry since 1983) – verses for the biggest hit of this album “Aš tavęs taip ilgai nemačiau” (I Haven’t Seen You for Such a Long Time). However, the ambiguous stanza from “Aš mylėjau“ (I Loved) written by the third brother, Arūnas Jucevičius, stuck out the most for me:
I loved you so calm
I melted from your lips
I loved you like the earth
Which I walked on mercilessly
Soniclove Amžina naktis (Everlasting Night)
Every time you dig deeper on YouTube or Pakartot.lt, you will uncover some undiscovered gems. For example, I didn’t know about the Eurodisco band from Kaunas called Soniclove, which released, I think, five albums between 1994 and 1997. Their music sucks you into a whirlwind of relentless dance beats, high, even childish-sounding female vocals and male rapping.
In the first single “Tik” (Just), the girl, who urges a man to look at her “with a warm and loving gaze” is opposed by the man’s rude reflections about her “true face without deception, without make-up”, the possibility of love, but at the same time an attempt “to change and forget those damned girls.”
We say one thing and do another
Instead of staying home
We to go a bar
We observe you and what you do
And then the nightmares follow
The band’s discography contains some songs with intriguing titles, such as, “Atleisk” nereiškia “myliu” (Forgive Me, Doesn’t Mean I Love You), “Tu man negeras” (You’re No Good For Me) and “Vistiek manęs nesupranti” (You Still Don’t Understand Me). And if we were to return to the topic set by Ekspresas, we could quote one of the best songs by Soniclove: “Mažytė” (Babygirl):
and I am so very tiny
you should come and hug me
and be my first dream
Džordana Butkutė Prisimink (Remember)
There are indeed many macho voices and young innocent seductive girls in the pop music of the year 1994, so I’d like to end the article on a different note. Džordana Butkutė’s texts and stance are refreshing, it takes you to a completely different world, where a woman stands with her head held high. Here she admits that she played with the guy’s feelings in “Nemylėjau tavęs” (I Didn’t Love You) and a guy’s courage evaporates when he recognizes the singer from the glamour of commercials. The rest of the night he observes her speechless, as described in the song “Rock‘n‘roll.”
He drove by
in a fancy car
When I was walking down the street
He was nothing but a baby
And he told me: stop!
Don’t run with your head up
Where did he find the courage
to talk to me?
The feelings in Džordana’s songs are multifaceted and often contradictory, so it is easy to identify with them. In the album Prisimink (Remember) released in 1994, she mostly remembers past relationships, “It is good with you / but it is even better without you”; there is longing and attempts not to repeat old mistakes.
I keep my phone close
every single day
But I know that none of us
will be making the call.
Of course, listening to other bands would create a different romantic soundscape. And I don’t think it’s worth getting angry that 30 years ago something was not as it should have been. It is important to come to terms with your past, sometimes to laugh at it, and sometimes to enjoy it. And evaluate how far we have come.
