Death is Worth Living and Love Is Worth Waiting For

“Death is worth living and love is worth waiting for” are the words engraved on a monument at the site of a car crash of Victor Tsoi, a Soviet rock musician, who died at the age of 28.

"Legend" by Victor Tsoi

(my translation from Russian)

A scream tightens into a lump by the vocal cords in the throat,
But the time has come whether you cry out or not.
Only later someone will not forget for a long time
How staggering soldiers wiped their swords on the grass,

How a black tribe of crows flapped there wings,
How the sky laughed then bit its tongue,
And a trembling hand of those left to live,
And an instant was a sudden forever.

And the sunset burned a funeral pyre,
Wolves were the stars looking down from the clouds,
Those who left in the night sprawled their arms,
And the living piled on in a dreamless sleep…

And life is a word, just a word,
There is only love and just death.
Hey, who will carry on the song if all are asleep?
Death is worth living and love is worth waiting for.

Original rendition in the Soviet movie “A City) (1988). Song starts from 1:12