Image by Rafał Nowakowski & Grzegorz Kszczotek, Wikimedia Commons license 🙏
Poland’s heavy-arty-proggy punk heroes Armia have been going since the late 80s, and are still going strong. Their latest album Wojna i pokój was released in January and they’ll be touring later in 2025 💪
“Nigdzie, teraz, tutaj” is not new, but it’s a great track for learners of Polish – it has only four lines that are repeated three times, including a bunch of common words.
Full lyrics and translation:
| Polish | English | Note |
| Nigdzie teraz, teraz tutaj | Nowhere now, now here | Looks even better in English :) |
| Ogień płonie, ogień płonie | Fire burning, fire burning | Another use of ogień: To ask if someone has a lighter, you can say “Masz ogień?” (“do you have fire”) |
| W ręce kamień, w ręce kamień | Stone in hand, stone in hand | The basic form of “hand” is “ręka”, but after the preposition “w” (in) it changes to “ręce” |
| My i oni, my i oni | Us and them, us and them | See below* |
A bit violent? Well it seems to capture the mood in late 80s Poland, with tensions running high between Soviet-style political leaders and everyone who was sick and tired of communist rule.
*Note that “my i oni” literally means “we and they”. A literal translation of “us and them” would be “nas i ich”, which must be extra confusing for German speakers (“ich” = “I” in German).
Random observation
Isn’t it funny that a Pole (Ludwig Zamenhof) invented Esperanto, a language that’s intended to be universally easy to learn and use? Because very often I get the feeling that Polish is trying hard to be the opposite 😆
Sing Polish 
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