Opinion of the preceding song lyrics

[Smid]

A devestating song, so sad. The words certainly create emotion, but I don't know the song, so I'll accept your analysis that the lyrics don't match the music.

My song: Va Pensiero Sull'ali Dorate from Verdi's Nabucco. It's the story of Nebuchadnezzar and this song is a song of the exiled Jews yearning for their homeland. It's beautiful. From what I've heard, Verdi had vowed never to write music again after his wife and children all died within a matter of a couple of months. His friend brought him the script for this and forced him to take it to read it - he went inside, threw the script onto the table and it opened at this page and as he read the words, he could hear the music and the longing in the words echoed the loss in his heart for his family. He composed the opera (his third) and it was an instant success - in part due to the beauty of this song. If it hadn't been for this song and this opera, we would have missed out on many other operas he wrote.

Here it is on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BZSqtqr8Qk

The translation is on there, but I'll repeat it here:

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I love that - "Fly, thought, on wings of gold;
go settle upon the slopes and the hills,
where, soft and mild, the sweet airs
of our native land smell fragrant!"