Yammat: Putujem

Yammat was a Croatian pop ‘project’ which later produced the pop band Detour. This is a hit from their 2004 album Plan B. The lyrics were written by Saša Ljiljak.

Highlight





These verses have a simple grammar:

Svaka priča ima kraj Every story has an end
svaki kamen zavičaj every stone a homeland
more ili planina a sea or a mountain

The following verses contain a desire clause:

Ti bi htio [da je sve You would like [everything to be
malo jednostavnije] a bit simpler]
al’ ne razumijemo se but we don’t understand each other

The forms of the irregular verb htjeti are explained in 31 Needs, Wishes and Intentions. The verb is here in the conditional form, which is explained in 38 Would, Could: Conditionals. Desire clauses are explained in 56 Desires and Demands.

The form jednostavnije is a comparative in neuter singular, demanded by the subject sve everything. For comparatives, check 63 Bigger and Better: Comparatives.

The use of se² to express each other is explained in 25 Plural.

Then the verses repeat with a small change. The word godine years is the subject in the last verse:

Svaka priča ima kraj Every story has an end
svako pleme zavičaj every tribe a homeland
asfalt ili livada asphalt or a meadow
Ti bi htio [da je sve You would like [everything to be
malo jednostavnije] a bit simpler]
al’ nas dijele godine but years separate us

The conjunction ali is here colloquially shortened, for rhythmic reasons: each verse has 7 syllables (ti bi hti-o da je sve / ma-lo je-dno-stav-ni-je / al nas dije-le go-di-ne). Of course, -ije- is just one syllable, since i is not pronounced. The shortened ali is often spelled with an apostrophe ().

The chorus contains two simple verses. The stressed form of 2nd pers. pronoun in A (tebe) is required by the preposition (na¨).

Putujem i ne mislim na tebe I’m traveling and not thinking about you
putujem i ne mislim I’m traveling and not thinking

Then the last set of verses uses the same pattern:

Krivo vrijeme, krivi svijet A wrong time, a wrong world
navikli su te na grijeh got you used to sin
pogled prema sjeveru a look toward north
Sad bi htio [da je sve Now you would like [everything to be
puno jednostavnije] a lot simpler]
al’ te mrvi čekanje but waiting is crumbling you

The fourth verse doesn’t contain a subject, and since conditional forms don’t distinguish 2nd and 3rd person forms in singular, the subject is known from the context.

The verb naviknuti / navići (navikne, navikao, navikla) is a perfective verb meaning get used to. Here it’s used with an object te² (2nd pers. pronoun in A). What you get used to is expressed with na¨ + A. This is idiomatic (i.e. specific for this verb) as with misliti think.

The form te² is also the object in the last verse, while čekanje waiting is the subject. The noun čekanje is a verbal noun; they are described in 66 Smoking is Dangerous: Verbal Nouns.

5 Easy Croatian: Yammat: Putujem Yammat was a Croatian pop ‘project’ which later produced the pop band Detour . This is a hit from their 2004 album Plan B . The lyrics were...

↓ 4 comments (click to show)