Album version is here. Live:

The songs on Multi Konta Culti Vs. Irony really get more and more impressive the deeper you get into the album. Both in terms of music and in terms of lyrics, “Through The Roof ‘N’ Underground” is one of the strongest songs on the CD.

The song, like many of Gogol Bordello’s tunes, addresses the struggles of immigrants against conformity. There’s several excellent lyric passages that address this:

And as we are crossing border after border
We realize that difference is none
It’s underdogs and if you want it
You always have to make your own fun
And as the upper dog leisurely sighing
The local cultures are dying and dying
And programmed robots are buying and buying
And secluded freaks they are still trying trying…

The silver rabbits hop between their fathers’ lies
And boy scouts ask pa where do they go
They go to countries that they only know
Just like the meanings they lay between the lines
Between the borders their real countries lie
They don’t hide and don’t advertise
Their strategy of being is one of in your face-disguise

I love the idea that their real country doesn’t exist within borders but between borders. Somehow, that captures the immigrant experience in my mind. In fact, it sort of captures that whole “you can’t go home again” concept – the place you’ve moved to isn’t quite home, but the place that was home isn’t quite home either. Home is somewhere in between that doesn’t exist in reality.

Oh, Yuri Lemeshev’s subtle and lovely accordion work on this song demonstrates, once again, how unfairly maligned that instrument has been. In the hands of a master, it sings.