Not me, I'm just a musician

That’s the band Divokej Bill in their song Čmelák, or bumble bee, singing our phrase for the week: “Not me, I’m a musician”. That’s not the musician just stating the obvious. In Czech, the phrase “Já nic, já muzikant” means more figuratively “Don’t look at me, I had nothing to do with it... pretend I’m not here”, so to speak. Have another listen to Divokej Bill, and look out for the phrase “Já nic, já muzikant”.

You say “Já nic, já muzikant” to strongly deny your responsibility for something or another. For me it brings to mind the image of detectives at a dinner party in a game of Clue looking for who poisoned Mr White. “It wasn’t me, the butler did it, I’m just one of the musicians”. Of course, according to another widespread adage, all Czechs are musicians, or at least you’ll hear them saying often enough: “Co Čech, to muzikant”. And then of course, when you give a lot to gain a little you would say: "za málo peněz hodně muziky", “a lot of music for just a pittance”. The word “muzika” incidentally is used infrequently in Czech, more commonly music is “hudba” the key word in the phrase “hudba budoucnosti”, which means a plan that will only come to fruition in the distant future.

An internet search for the phrase “Já nic, já muzikant” shows you how it’s most often used, and you’ll see the attitudes of hand-washing lawmakers described in this way. Considering the state of things political at present, we might expect a new phrase to pop up soon: “já nic, já politik”.