We get this question a lot, especially when we play outside the country. "Why don't you sing in English?" There are basically two reasons, and neither of them is patriotism.
The words carry weight
When we sing "noćni stražar traži žrtve nove", that's not a line you can translate cleanly to English. Not because of the meaning - because of the sound. Those consonants are bound to an emotion that is ours.
A foreign audience doesn't need to understand every word. They need to feel that we mean it.
Audiences react more honestly
We tried an English version of a verse once. It was fine. It was fine. That's all. In Bosnian - they sang along.
There's a downside, of course. Fewer streams, smaller algorithmic reach, less of a chance that someone in Berlin falls into a rabbit hole with our album. We've made our peace with that.
Which doesn't mean we never will
A song about a city needs the language of that city. If one day we write something that genuinely calls for English - okay. But we won't force it.
Thanks for reading. More from the next rehearsal.