Decent people are long gone

You're listening to SoundCzech - Radio Prague's own Czech language series in which you can learn Czech idioms through song lyrics. Today's song is "Blues pro slušný lidi" or "Blues for decent people" by Czech singer, songwriter and lyricist Jiří Dědeček. It is featured on his 1995 album "Reprezentant lůzy". The phrase to listen for is "s lidma už je dávno ámen".

Jiří Dědeček

The complete phrase, as it appears in the song, is "se slušnejma lidma už je dávno ámen", which literally means "decent people have long been done for" or perhaps simply "decent people are long gone". The song was originally written in 1977, perhaps the darkest year of the post-invasion regime in Czechoslovakia. Jiří Dědeček was making an ironic point with the song that all the decent people have disappeared. As he explained, this particular song did not raise any suspicion of the censors because the Communists also wished people were decent. It's just that they had quite a different idea of decency in mind.

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The actual phrase in the base form would be "s něčím nebo s někým je ámen" meaning "something or somebody is done for". The word amen, adopted by all modern languages, has Semitic roots and is used to close prayers. That is probably why it gained its secondary meaning in Czech - something is over. If you say "je s ním ámen", the person you are talking about is not doing very well indeed.

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There is another expression of similar meaning in the same song "Blues pro slušný lidi" by Jiří Dědeček. The phrase runs "je po nich veta", or it is all over for them. The word "veta" - not to be confused with a similar word "věta", meaning clause or sentence - is used in much the same context as the previous phrase. In this song, it is all over for decent people. Jiří Dědeček says they are taken to ghettos, where the decent become obedient.

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Thank you for listening to this edition of SoundCzech.