Sunday 11 October 2009

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

Hubert Joanneton (journalist of the French magazine Radio Je Vois Tout): Violeta, you're a poet, composer, upholsterer and painter. If you had to choose one medium, which one would you select?
Violeta Parra: I'd rather keep the people.



Today's column was written some weeks ago. Then last Monday I learned of the death of the Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa and a little part of me died that day, too. I felt, right there and then, compelled to modify the content of today's post and turn it, maybe, into a tribute to someone whose heartfelt performances made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Ibero-Latin people like me feel proud of our rich heritage.

However, I have left most of the original material intact because the topic today is also linked to the art form to which Mercedes Sosa dedicated her life during a singing career that spanned more than five decades: the poet as singer.

It was during my adolescent years in Havana when I finally got the opportunity to choose the music I wanted to listen to - within the narrow confines of the Cuban society of the mid 80s and our government's prohibitions - and the first genre I embraced wholeheartedly was rock and roll. Bluesy, earthquaking, musical notes, became the be-all and end-all of my life's soundtrack. To say that I fell for rock's cliches and platitudes would be stating the bleeding obvious (Twisted Sister anyone? How about Quiet Riot?). But after a childhood where most of the music blaring out of the Made-in-the-USSR Selena radio we had in my house was traditional Cuban rhythms, I craved for a different experience.

During these years I turned my back on anything that had too deep a message and too flimsy a melody. Grand bass hooks, never-ending guitar solos and ear-piercing vocals were all the rage amongst my peers and I am not ashamed to admit that for some years the reigning sound in my life was that of a Fender Stratocaster.

That changed when I reached year 12 in college (high school in the US). One of my mates took me to see Arturo Sandoval at the Havana International Jazz Festival. I tagged along reluctantly and to this day I still remember getting butterflies in my stomach when the famed trumpeter appeared on stage and let rip. He was being supported by Irakere, a famous Cuban band, and they both awakened a strong desire in me to explore this genre further. Jazz is such a liberating and liberated music form that I am still amazed it took me so long to like it and accept it.

What came afterwards when I began university was the result of learning a foreign language in depth - English - and growing older and therefore looking at music from another perspective.

Whereas until then I had paid more attention to rhythm than lyrics, once I had begun to delve into the intricacies of English as a lexicon, I came across the poet as a singer, or a better way of putting it would be a singer who is a poet first and foremost, albeit with a good musical voice. An unexpected addendum was that this process allowed me to re-discover musical gems in my own native tongue. Enter Joaquín Sabina, Leonard Cohen and Joan Manuel Serrat. Enter also Patti Smith.

I was already familiar with the poet-as-a-singer genre. After all, the best example we have in Cuba is Silvio Rodríguez Domínguez, whose compositions feed on the writer's poetic and visually artistic nature. I was familiar, too, with Bob Dylan's songbook, but saw him above all as a performer. And as for the Catalán Serrat, the only tunes that appealed to me when I was younger were his immortal 'Penélope' and 'Mediterráneo'. The rest sounded strange to my teenage ears.

But when in 1991 Cuban television showed a very young Christian Slater playing an independent and rebellious pirate radio station DJ in the film 'Pump Up the Volume' I knew my very own 'Road to Damascus' moment had arrived. The opening track of that film was Leonard Cohen's 'Everybody Knows' and it was these two stanzas that brought the volte face in my life I have so far described: Everybody knows that the boat is leaking/Everybody knows that the captain lied/Everybody got this broken feeling/Like their father or their dog just died(...)Everybody knows that you love me baby/Everybody knows that you really do/Everybody knows that youve been faithful/Ah give or take a night or two/Everybody knows youve been discreet/But there were so many people you just had to meet/Without your clothes/And everybody knows

The softness with which the above lines were delivered, in that peculiarly husky voice Leonard had, made one forget for a minute that he was actually referring to someone who'd just cheated on him. Sublime.

From then on, my musical tastes widened up to include new poets-as-singers - Sabina, Tom Waits - and those to whom my younger years had never given a second chance, i.e., Serrat.

The history of these men and women who put pen to paper to create verses that could or would then be musicalised can be traced back to the ancient troubadours in Europe or griots in west Africa. These were poets (and story-tellers, too, but that's another post) who went after the tales that made up the bulk of their material. They were the purveyors of our folk heritage, never mind in which part of the world you found yourself. They were also the main motif for the appearance of a subgenre: the singer-as-a-poet. Joni Mitchell, please come out from behind that sofa. And you don't need any introduction, Baaba Maal.

And this is where the great Mercedes Sosa comes into the picture. She was the crown jewel of what Dante Alighieri called the fictio rethorica musicaque poita: rhetorical, musical, and poetical fiction. Evidence of that is the song that made her a household name in Iberoamerica, Gracias a la Vida (Thanks to Life). This melody had already been popularised by its author, poet-as-singer Violeta Parra. And yet, when you hear it in Mercedes's rich, alto voice, the emotional range through which it takes you makes you connect deeper with the lyrics: Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto/Me ha dado el sonido y el abecedario/Con él las palabras que pienso y declaro/Madre, amigo, hermano, y luz alumbrando/La ruta del alma del que estoy amando. (sorry, no translation)

Mercedes was not a poet (can I still write 'poetess' in English without any fear of being prosecuted?) and some people might even consider her to be an unnecessarily intrusive element between the poet-as-singer and his/her song. She wasn't a composer either, as far as I know. However, each melody she sang, every song she performed, she made it hers, both through her imposing stage persona and her prodigious voice. And to me that is enough proof, if any was needed, of poetry and the power of it. Here she is, performing one of her most famous numbers, Como la Cigarra (Like the Cicada), originally a poem by the Argentinian writer María Elena Walsh (I'm extremely sorry that I coud not find a good translation on youtube, I hope you can still enjoy it). Thanks.



Copyright 2009

Next Post: 'What Makes a Good Writer' by Zadie Smith, to be published on Tuesday 13th October at 11:59pm (GMT)

30 comments:

  1. Oh yes...Sosa, in any language...thoroughly enjoyable.

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  2. Cuban: I did not know of Sosa - quite a voice and presence.

    Before we were 'following' each other, I posted Cohen's lyrics "Everybody Knows" - they are among my favourites - and strike such a political chord these days too. He used to be quite a presence on the streets of Montreal - and people would often find themselves sitting beside him eating a bagel for breakfast - or beside him meditating in a zendo - or of course as his adoring audience in an intimate concert. I've always felt his music is music to 'check out' to . . . not that I plan to . . . but it is often so mournful and plaintive . . . However, I know a lyric would set me thinking and wanting to live a moment longer . . . and I'd check right back in! :)

    Do you know of Lhasa de Sela? She sings in Spanish, French and English, and actually just goes by "Lhasa". An American who lives in Montreal, but lived for a while in Marseille. Her lyrics are amazing, as is her delivery. A young woman - but I hear she has been ill for a while and has cancelled her tour with her latest CD.

    I really enjoy your Sunday Morning Posts!

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  3. "I craved for a different experience....."
    E con questa frase si inizia a visionare il tuo cammino di vita e musicale.
    E si capisce con questo andeddoto di piú, che leggendo altri Blog dove tutti gridano libertá, ma solo spesso perché stanno fuori di quella rude realtá;)

    Sono contento Cuban che dimostri che c'é molto altro di quello che vogliono mostrare altri. Altri che creano solo stereotipi di Salsa, dando un immagine sbagliata dell'isola.

    I gusti musicali tuoi sono ottimi. E condivido che una persona deve essere aperta per tutto il genere di musica, come anche letteratura e altro. Questo dimostra anche sensibilitá e sapienza in altre cose della vita.

    Come dicesti tu nel mio blog, abbiamo molti gusti in comune :)

    Ottimo post Cuban!



    Saluti da Colonia,
    Salva

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  4. I was at her first concert in Buenos Aires when she returned from exile. The military was still in power, and for the standing-room only crowd, she sang their hopes of liberation and expressed their sorrow at a grief still otherwise unspoken. Whether young or old, all faces shone with tears and joy. It was as if a nation, so long immersed in terror and persecution, found its voice again. I am deeply saddened by her loss.

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  5. This is an absolutely amazing post not only about music, but about how it grows with us, and how we grow with it. And poetry. The marriage of the two? An absolutely earth-shattering experience for those of us who can appreciate each art form as an individual entity, pure and unadulterated.

    I'll tell you this on what I think about music and literature in translation: meanings and feelings get lost. But sometimes we have no other recourse. You did a great thing to post the Sosa song as it is, in its original language. This is how the true magic remains intact. Have a good day, Cuban!

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  6. Beautiful song and sorry for the loss of Mercedes. It is most sad when our icons or idols die.

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  7. To me you are music. The way you describe anything music is like you are describing yourself. I hear the beat.

    Love Renee xoxo

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  8. she seems like an icon for so many- her earthy voice and deep messages resonate today as yesterday . no doubt she will be listened to for a very long time to come! have a super Sunday!
    salut du midi

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  9. Thank you for this great post./Ibou

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  10. oh, what a voice - and the very last, though I could not understand the language, I understood the meaning - made me tear up - beautiful beautiful

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  11. Madre mía Cubano... I didn't know the great Mercedes Sosa had died! I just told my mum and she even cried (she hadn't heard either), she grew up in Argentina and we all love her songs...

    Beautiful video. Thanks... y feliz domingo!

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  12. Amazing post..your love for words and music..
    I'm shaking from that excerpt,"Everybody knows"..Love and politics as usual. It must be that hearing poetry and reading it cover different accomplishments..Reading it, I got the rage and sarcasm..Leonard Cohen, right?

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  13. Many thanks for your kind words. This has been a week of pure mourning for me. I have been playing her records nonstop. 'Carito', 'Si Se Calla El Cantor', 'Yo Vengo a Ofrecer Mi Corazon'. Amazing talent we've lost.

    Bonnie, I love Lhasa. Unfortunately I haven't got any of her albums yet, but they are on my amazon wishlist. I listen to her songs on last.fm and youtube, of course, and I think she is a very unusual singer. Her version of Cohen's 'Who By Fire' is one my favourite ones.

    Many thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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  14. Beautiful post...poet-singers have always been my favorite, Tom Waits accompanied me through my twenties with his soulful voice, how many cigarettes and glasses of red wine did I indulge in imagining his world while watching mine go by down on the street...

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  15. Many thanks, stacey. Ahhh, Tom is a maverick. You never know when he's going to break into song or verse, or both. And he does it with such panache.

    After reading so many lovely comments, I just had to pull out my old copy of Cohen's 'Greatest Hits' and as I write now I've got the Suzannes and Chelsea Hotels for company.

    Many thanks for your feedback.

    Greetings from London.

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  16. Thank you so much for this interesting post. I love your Sundays of reflections and music. The music, too, was something that I had never heard. It's wonderful to hear it and I will look for more.

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  17. As a Midwest American, I had to look up a lot of your post today. I'm now enamored with the Cohen song that I hadn't heard, and researching more about your belle. Thanks for sharing what you know innately, to one who doesn't know it at all!

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  18. Very interesting post, Cuban, it's good to learn so much about music and yourself. As a foreigner whose third language is English I share your discovery of poets-as-singers. Only in my case it was Sting and Peter Gabriel. I must say I'm not familiar with half of the singers you mention.

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  19. I enjoyed this post. It reminds how important it is to touch, feel with all our senses; shun robotic existences. Music is the key. Thanks.

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  20. What a lovely tribute. I too was saddened by Mercedes' passing and had not stopped to deal with it. Thank you for connecting the emotions with the music for me.

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  21. I very much enjoyed reading you this afternoon, as much for your lyrical and agile language as for the subject of your column. It's always a pleasure.

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  22. Many thanks to you all for your kind words.

    Greetings from London.

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  23. Enjoyed her music. And thank you for the
    education.

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  24. This is a beautiful post.
    And she deserved it.
    We, on the other hand, came of age with the lyrics of Silvio Rodriguez and the cuban trova.

    A propósito, anoche festejamos los 90 años de mi padre, que mencionó en su discurso al malecón de La Habana.

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  25. Mr. Cuban, I want to thank you for all your marvelous musical choices. Thanks for stopping by the ball. You really ARE the best dancer here tonight, dear friend. ~xx

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  26. Cuban, I challenged you to that dance off after Willow's comment. Yes, you sure can dance. It must be in your vibe, to boot.


    good to see you again. Yes, chenged blogs.

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  27. Many thanks for your kind feedback.

    Greetings from London.

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  28. You make a major mistake. Stefan Zweig and Stefanie Zweig are two different writers. You should correct your commentary of 16 Oct 2009
    Yours,
    Prof.Dr.JBB
    JBB106@aol.com

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  29. Jeffrey, I appreciate your comment but there was no mistake. Read the opening paragraph again. That's exactly what I wrote. They are two different authors. Many thanks.

    Greetings from London.

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  30. A lovely post full of joy. It was good too to have some artists mentioned beyond the UK/USA ones. When I lived in Spain I listened to Silvio and Sabina and others and absolutely LOVED them!
    x

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