ORIMERAThe Other Side of Us
Too many years have passed to return unchanged to the beginning. Even so, they can remain face to face and listen to what the other has to say.
Original lyrics and translation
Read the English original, the Spanish translation, or both texts stanza by stanza.
Notes on the translation
“El otro lado de nosotros” retains the image of those who had been left outside that “us”.
“A dejar de verte como un ser humano” conveys the decision to preserve that recognition even in disagreement.
The chorus and ending refer to the line in different ways. That tension in the original is preserved.
The translation accompanies the original lyrics, preserves their stanzas and is not adapted for singing.
Staying with disagreement
Editorial reading
The last song begins by recognising what the encounter cannot repair. The words were heard, the doors remember names, and each person arrives with a pain the other cannot wholly take on. The past is still part of the conversation.
The narrator has discovered that the person opposite was never only what he was told. Now he can listen without sharing their whole story. He can also acknowledge that there are things they may never manage to name in the same way.
The bridge stops asking for mutual absolution. Neither needs to declare the other innocent or wholly right in order to stop feeding the distance. The encounter rests on something more difficult: acknowledging that humanity while disagreement still matters.
The ending returns to the line. After eight songs, the gesture is restrained: tonight they look at each other differently. The album leaves that beginning before two people who must decide what to do with it.
The space a conversation can open
Listening to a difficult story changes a conversation before it changes an opinion. It can bring in something a prepared response had not considered: a loss, a fear or an experience we do not know.
Recognising the other person does not require us to give up our disagreement. That difficulty remains in the “us” of the title: how much room we can make for another person without ceasing to be ourselves.
Can we keep disagreeing without ceasing to recognise each other?
After the song
The line is still there. So are they. Tonight, the story ends with two people who can still look at each other.