PBS高端访谈:讲述"盗汗"乐队的开创史

JOHN YANG: And, finally, another in our occasional series My Music. The group Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats has been hitting its stride with soulful rhythm-and-blues¹ and front man Rateliff's lyrics². Before a recent show at the Anthem³ in Washington, D.C., Rateliff talked about his decade-long struggle before finding inspiration for the band's sound.

NATHANIEL RATELIFF, Musician: My name is Nathaniel Rateliff. I'm in a band called The Night Sweats. What is a night, a night sweat, now, I guess you could, it's a menopausal symptoms. It's also a symptom of alcohol with drugs. It's a good sign of heart disease. And then it's eight or seven other dudes that I travel around the country and work with. Over the years, it's been a lot of different things. Painted houses for a while. I was a gardener, worked at trucking companies for about 10 years. And after years of being a singer-songwriter, I was really just kind of discouraged and felt like I had been treading water for a long time. And it was either be a gardener or find something that wasn't so, that felt less discouraging. I didn't really know what else to do, and I just had a friend who was like, you should come over and record a couple of songs. I was like, I don't want to do anything with an acoustic⁴ guitar. He said, well, do something else. I was like, I always wanted to play like soul and R&B. He is like, well, do that. I was like, I don't know how to write any of that. When my dad passed away, he left his record collection. And kind of digging through those records, it was sort of like a piece of him that he left to me. All different sets of genres⁵ of music, kind of the start of rock 'n' roll, and blues, and soul, and R&B, and I was curious about it and just kept wanting to know more about it. So all of it was there. I went home that day, and I kind of had this idea of like trying to write a song that sounded like The Band and Sam & Dave. And then from there, I just kind of, like, it just kind of made sense to me. It was really exciting. It was new. And after, you know, probably 10 or more years of doing the other stuff, you know, it just felt refreshing⁶.

约翰·杨：不定期更新的《我的音乐》又与大家见面啦！纳撒尼尔·拉特利夫&盗汗组合凭借触动灵魂的韵律、蓝调以及专辑封面人物拉特利夫亲手谱写的歌词，点击率迅速飙升。在最近华盛顿特区安瑟姆剧场的演出之前，拉特利夫曾谈到，自己挣扎了10年，才为乐队的声音找到灵感。

纳撒尼尔·拉特利夫，音乐人：我是纳撒尼尔·拉特利夫，我所在的组合叫“盗汗”。寓意是多么好的夜晚啊，多么美妙的夜晚。我猜你们一定觉得这个名字很有夕阳红的风格。这个名字也代表了酒精和药物，代表着心脏病。我跟七八个好友一起游历了祖国的大江南北，我们是很好的伙伴。过去这些年来，我们遭遇了很多困难。我们曾自己给家里刷漆。我曾做过园丁，在多家卡车公司做了近10年。做了数年的歌手兼歌曲作家后，我真的有些泄气，我觉得我一直像是在水中艰难前行一样。但我只能在园丁和寻找其他事情做之间做选择，这种感觉很让我沮丧。我其实并不知道要做什么。当时正巧有一位朋友跟我说，我应该录制一些歌曲。我的反应是——我只有一把木吉他，我什么都做不了。他说，那就做点别的事情嘛。但我说，我只想做黑人音乐和R&B。朋友就说，那就大胆去做吧。我又说，但我不知道怎么写出这样的歌曲。我父亲去世后，留下了自己录制的音乐。我一张一张的听着，就好像父亲还在我身边。这里有各种风格的音乐，有摇滚乐、蓝调、黑人音乐、R&B，我很好奇，想要一一去探寻。而且所有东西都在这儿了。那一天，我回到家后，就产生了这样的想法——我想试着写个，写出像“乐团”和“山姆&戴夫”乐队风格的歌曲。从那时起，我就感到这件事对我而言是有意义的。这件事让我感到兴奋，是全新的领域。在其他领域做了10多年之后，这件事让我再次鼓起了精神。

1 blues   

n.抑郁，沮丧；布鲁斯音乐

参考例句：

• She was in the back of a smoky bar singing the blues.她在烟雾弥漫的酒吧深处唱着布鲁斯歌曲。
• He was in the blues on account of his failure in business.他因事业失败而意志消沉。

2 lyrics   

n.歌词

参考例句：

• music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hart 由罗杰斯和哈特作词作曲
• The book contains lyrics and guitar tablatures for over 100 songs. 这本书有100多首歌的歌词和吉他奏法谱。

3 anthem   

n.圣歌，赞美诗，颂歌

参考例句：

• All those present were standing solemnly when the national anthem was played.奏国歌时全场肃立。
• As he stood on the winner's rostrum,he sang the words of the national anthem.他站在冠军领奖台上，唱起了国歌。

4 acoustic   

adj.听觉的，声音的；(乐器)原声的

参考例句：

• The hall has a fine acoustic.这个大厅的传音效果很好。
• Animals use a whole rang of acoustic, visual,and chemical signals in their systems of communication.动物利用各种各样的听觉、视觉和化学信号来进行交流。

5 genres   

（文学、艺术等的）类型，体裁，风格( genre的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Novel and short story are different genres. 长篇小说和短篇小说是不同的类别。
• But confusions over the two genres have a long history. 但是类型的混淆，古已有之。 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译

6 refreshing   

adj.使精神振作的，使人清爽的，使人喜欢的

参考例句：

• I find it'so refreshing to work with young people in this department.我发现和这一部门的青年一起工作令人精神振奋。
• The water was cold and wonderfully refreshing.水很涼，特别解乏提神。