This is a paraphrase of a Russian folk saying "На миру и смерть красна" that means death among people for the interests of society is not terrible. Here the word "мир" means society (obsolete and ecclesiastical meaning). "красна" - it's obsolete too which means literally - good, not terrible, not ugly. He added to this saying just a word about the music. I think he wanted to say in these words that it is impossible for him to live and express himself, his rebellious position without music.

The line is missing the particle и: а без музыки И на миру смерть не красна. на миру и смерть красна means that if you are not alone, even death isn't that scary. Particle и emphasizes the word that follows (и смерть = even death). Tsoi modifies the line a little bit, moving the emphatic "и" ("и на миру смерть" instead of "на миру и смерть") and adding negative "не", which becomes "without music, death is terrible/scary/etc even if you are not alone / even if you are surrounded by people".

красный = beautiful Это устаревшее значение, происходит из древнерусского языка. >>death is ugly without music That is pretty much close in meaning. >>beauty makes death more manageable as a concept? Well, maybe. It's poetry.

Hi, Matthew! You are absolutely right. The meaning of this line is "death is ugly without music". But the meaning of word "красна" is more similar to the meaning "to like something". It is not about "beauty" or "ugly" meaning. It is not about phisical appearance. It is more about fellings (like "I am happy/glad") The author means that he can"t live without music. And even death is not so scared, when he is with a music The second line explains more: А без музыки на миру смерть не красна А без музыки не хочется пропадать (I don"t want to die\to go waste without a music)

Matthew, of course ask questions. In general, poetry is difficult to translate literally into another language without knowing the context. And this is especially true of the so called Russian rock where the lyrics often look meaningless if you understand them literally. The authors try to create some images using separate expressions, and from the totality of these images, one can only guess the meaning.