This is one of my favorite songs. It was written by Pablo Milanés in 1976, 3 years after the coup d’etat that started one of the bloodiest periods in Chilean history – where the military disappeared and massacred thousands of Chilean citizens.
Here is a translation:
I will step once again on the streets
of what was bloodstained Santiago
and in a beautiful liberated town square
I will stop to cry for those who are absent.
I will come from the scorching desert
and I’ll come out of the woods and lakes
and I’ll evoke from a hill of Santiago
my brothers who died before.
I, joined with whom did much and little,
with whom wants this land liberated,
I will shoot the first bullets
rather earlier than later, without respite.
The books, the songs, will return
those burnt by murdering hands
my people will be reborn from its ruins
and the traitors will pay for their guilt.
A child will cry in a tree-lined avenue,
and will sing with his new friends
and that song will be the song of the soil
to a life ended in La Moneda.
I will step once again on the streets
of what was bloodstained Santiago
and in a beautiful liberated town square
I will stop to cry for those who are absent.
Category: Songs (Page 3 of 4)
Here is another song from Alberto Cortez which I like a lot, in my free translation. This is for my friends who actually read my blog.
I owe my friends the tenderness
and words of encouragement and hugs
sharing with them the bill
that life presents to us step by step.
I owe my friends the patience
of tolerating me the sharpest thorns
the outbursts of humor
negligence, vanity
fears and doubts.
Friendship seems sometimes
like a fragile paper boat
but even the strongest tempest
can never bring it down
because that paper boat
has tied to its helm
as a captain and helmsman
a heart, a heart, a heart.
My friend, if this song as the wind
calls you wherever you want to hear it
you’ll be plural, because feelings don’t show themselves
when you have your friends in your soul.
Tango has an amazing quality of making you nostalgic for things you never experienced themselves. Many tangos were written from the 1930’s to 50’s, its golden age, and thus reflect on a society that we never experienced. Indeed, many tangos are about people looking back in their youth, to an even older Argentina that now lives only in books, old movies and tango lyrics.
Cafet
I continue working, and another song from my playlists appear. This one was written by argentine songwriter Victor Heredia for his sister for his sister, Mar
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