Александр ДОЛЬСКИЙ  Blue Eyes State

In the end of the 70es the relationships between bard singers and official culture were so unfriendly that the bards wrote songs about everything but politics. In this release Alexander Dolsky does not sing about blue eyes, in spite of the title of this album. But he does not sing about politics as well. Here you can find heart-warming songs about old sails, young ballet-dancer and smiling captain. It's a very calm album. Dolsky's guitar technique is superb, lyrics are predictable. This album is a self-portrait, tranquil and ironical ('I buffle the eggheads '). The main philosophical intention of the disk is: 'let's forever forget that time exists'. Two final songs, 'Timtalibri and the compote' and 'Flotilla returns', create a depressing feeling of an extraneous body in this album. 'Timtalibri' with its senseless alliterations is a distant relative of famous 'Hedge-hog with a Hole in his Right Side' by Yunna Moritz - one is always ashamed of this kind of relatives. 'Timtalibri' and 'Flotilla' seem to be a prolonged and pointless interlude that spoils the atmosphere of the album.

Quotes: One shouldn't forget that the bard song was not officially acknowledged in this country. When we appeared socialism was already expanded, it was so expanded that it's evolution had already stopped. That's why there was no place for us neither in the Union of Writers, nor in the Union of Composers. In the rules of the Ministry of Culture there was no reference to our profession. Officially we did not exist, that meant that we did not exist at all. Ideological organizations were eager to cooperate with us, but only in one sense: they wanted to suppress us, to scorch us, to punish us, to block us (Alexander Dolsky. From an interview).

Only bards dared to tell the truth at that time, there was no sign of rock-music. Well maybe today the best rock-musicians are even more honest and more piercing than we are when speaking about some urgent problems. But it's not bards' fault. It's our trouble. We've been struggling for survival for too long (from an interview).