Ach du liber, Augustin!

Factual Questions
1

It’s been way too long since I’ve spoken German. Does anyone have a better translation for Ach Du Liber, Augustin than I can get with babelfish?

Ach, du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Geld ist hin, Mädl ist hin, alles ist hin, Augustin!
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Rock ist weg, Stock ist weg, Augustin liegt im Dreck.
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Und selbst das reiche Wien, hin ist’s wie Augustin;
Weint mit mir im gleichen Sinn, alles ist hin!
Jeder Tag war ein Fest, jetzt haben wir die Pest!
Nur ein großes Leichenfest, das ist der Rest.
Augustin, Augustin, leg’ nur ins Grab dich hin!
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!

2

Ach, du Lieber!

Not only did I mis-spell ‘Lieber’ in the title, but I also did it in the OP! :smack: And when I went to type this correction, I mis-typed it again! :smack: :smack: (I caught it whilst mis-typing it though.)

If a mod feels like correcting it, that would be good.

3

Ach, du lieber Augustin, Augustin, Augustin
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Geld ist hin, Mädl ist hin, alles ist hin, Augustin!
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Rock ist weg, Stock ist weg, Augustin liegt im Dreck.
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!
Und selbst das reiche Wien, hin ist’s wie Augustin;
Weint mit mir im gleichen Sinn, alles ist hin!
Jeder Tag war ein Fest, jetzt haben wir die Pest!
Nur ein großes Leichenfest, das ist der Rest.
Augustin, Augustin, leg’ nur ins Grab dich hin!
Ach, du lieber Augustin, alles ist hin!

It’s definately a dirge, the guy’s singing to a corpse.

Oh my goodness, Augustin, etc.
Money is gone, the girl? is gone, everything’s gone
Oh my goodness, Augustin, everything’s gone
Rock? is gone, Cattle are gone, Augustin lies in the gutter crap.
Oh my goodness, Augustin, everything is gone
And myself, with the ?glorious? Wine, is gone like Augustin.
Boozed with me in the same sin, everything is gone
Every day was a party, now we have the Plauge.
Only a big ?rotting?Moldy?party that is the rest.
Augustin, Augustin, let’s get you away into a grave
Oh my good Augustin, everything’s gone.

My German’s pretty rusty too, but that’s what I made of it

4

How about you simply go with an already translated version, such as this one.

5

Oh, where’s the fun in that?
Other than to show just how rusty my German was, I missed a lot. But I do think ‘Everything’s gone’ is a closer translation that ‘I just can win’. I think that was used because it rhymes better. So Rock is coat, and Stock is a staff, not Cattle. I also think a rotting party has the spirit more than the sleeping corpses, since when does ‘fest’ connotate sleep?

6

Clearly the translation linked by Scott Plaid is meant to be metrical, but it’s not bad. Then again it’s a simple song.

Notes on more literal translation (just to clarify what is/isn’t right about The Sonoran Lizard King’s translation.

“Everything’s gone” is better and I think even singable, better than the silly “I just can’t win”.

die Pest = plague.

das Leichenfest = ‘corpse-party’. As far as I know, this doesn’t have any other meaning; it’s just a coined compound here which is pretty common in German.

im Dreck liegen - SLZ’s translation is pretty literal (Dreck can be dirt or filth generally), but the phrase is also used figuratively. In this case (according to the legend), both seem to apply.

The other stuff is correct in the metrical translation (“Shed tears with thoughts akin” is pretty good, if a bit archaic).

7

Also “Rock” for “coat” is very archaic. “Rock” today almost always means a woman’s skirt, though the first book I ever read–and only that book–did use the “coat” translation of the word.