Què volen aquesta gent?

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Què volen aquesta gent ? ( Catalan for 'What do these people want?') Is a song that made Maria del Mar Bonet famous in 1968. She composed the political ballad about the death of astudent committedagainst Francoism in collaboration with the songwriter Lluís Serrahima , who wrote the text. The song is inspired by Catalan folk songs and belongs to the local Nova Cançó of the 1960s and 1970s.

Content and template

A situation is described in which the police want to arrest an unspecified student in his parents' apartment early in the morning because he was politically active against the Francisco Franco regime . The student leaps out of the window to his death in front of his unsuspecting mother and state power.

A case that actually occurred on January 30, 1967, was artistically processed. The 23-year-old student of social sciences Rafael Guijarro Moreno was active in Madrid in the environment of the Maoist group Seguro de Enfermedad . Apparently he had said that he would rather commit suicide than go to jail, and when the police tried to arrest him at his home on January 30, 1967, he jumped from the sixth floor in the presence of his mother and died. In February and April 1967, the dissident Cuadernos para el diálogo dedicated the leading article to this case under the title De madrugada (“At Daybreak”) .

Publication and censorship

After the song had been played at a concert in Barcelona (in the Bar Cova del Drac ), the state censorship authority banned further performance or playing on the radio, which - in some cases successfully - attempts were made to circumvent the song under the title A. trenc d'alba ("At dawn") or De matinada ("At daybreak"). Maria del Mar Bonet reports that she was not allowed to sing the song for several years, but was not banned from performing herself. The song made the singer known; she sang it together with the Chilean band Quilapayún and the Valencian Borja Penalba, among others .

Political background and impact

The theme of the song picked up on the basic mood of uncertainty and fear within the opposition movement against the Franco regime , in which arrests were constantly to be expected, especially in the dark, which the songwriter Raimon repeatedly addressed. In 1969, for example, in his song Quan creus que ja s'acaba, torna a comencar (“If you think it's over, it'll start again”) , he sang as follows: “Maybe the elevator that keeps going by will stay one night stand in front of your apartment, and you and I will have to open, and you and I, powerless in the face of the night, will have to open. "

Together with other early Nova Cançó songs such as Raimons Al vent or Lluís Llachs L'estaca , Què volen aquesta gent? as a testimony to this opposition movement and the hope for a freer future, which until then had been excluded from public discourse. Despite the attempts at censorship, the song was heard and sung at parties, at rallies and in resistance groups, especially in student and middle-class intellectual circles, making it an “anti-Franco” and “civic anthem”.

A few weeks after the song was published, on January 20, 1969, another Madrid student died under unexplained circumstances. According to the official report, Enrique Ruano, who was arrested on January 17, 1969 for his participation in the radical left-wing Frente de Liberación Popular , committed suicide in the courtyard of the interrogation building from the seventh floor and surrounded by three officers from the political police . The family and large parts of the public doubted this version, assuming that Ruano was being forced to jump or pushed down to cover up evidence of torture. The police officers involved were acquitted in court. The case is repeatedly cited as a template for the song, which is not possible in terms of time, since the song preceded Ruano's death. However, the case, which received a great response from the public, showed that the subject of the song was topical and was associated with the song in the public perception - since it was about a nameless stranger, it was easily universalizable. The death of Ruano had an impact on the fact that the song spread quickly and widely, especially among those who advocated a change in political conditions since the second half of the 1960s.

Musical role models and reception

Musically, the song is based on traditional Catalan, ballad-like folk songs ( "Romanç" ) such as La dama d'Aragó or La presó de Lleida . The "poignant" and "mythical" song is carried by its "heartbreaking drama" and the "militant", haunting song performance of the singer, which testifies to "dramatic sensitivity". Another possible model is the 1963 song Qué dirá el Santo Padre? (“What will the Holy Father say?”), In which Violeta Parra had accused the politically motivated execution of the Spanish communist Julián Grimau .

Many other singers have recorded the song, including Joan Manuel Serrat in Catalan on his 1996 album Banda sonara d'un temps, d'un país , Elisa Serna in Spanish under the title ¿Esta gente qué querrá? on her album Quejido , released in Paris in 1972 (when the album was released in Spain in 1975, this song again fell victim to censorship) and Edyta Geppert in Polish under the title Czegóż chcą ludzie ci .

literature

  • Maria del Mar Bonet: “Qué es lo que quiere esta gente?” In: Manel Risques, Ricard Vinyes, Antoni Marí (eds.): En transición. Exhibition catalog, Center de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2007, ISBN 978-84-9803-248-2 , pp. 62–65 (on the creation; not evaluated).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See José Álvarez Cobelas: Envenandos de cuerpo y alma. La oposición universitaria al franquismo en Madrid (1939–1970). Siglo XXI, Madrid 2004, ISBN 84-323-1162-6 , p. 175, and the death notice Suicido de un joven. In: ABC , February 1, 1967, p. 58 f.
  2. ↑ Javier Muñoz Soro: Cuadernos para el diálogo, 1963-1976. Una historia cultural del segundo franquismo. Marcial Pons, Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-96467-14-7 , p. 125.
  3. ↑ Kazuko Ueno: Veus per existir: Catalunya, País Basc i Còrsega. La cançò d'autor vista per una japonesa. Cossètania Edicions, Valls 2004, ISBN 84-9791-009-5 , 1998 interview with Maria del Mar Bonet, pp. 44–47, here p. 45 .
  4. ↑ a b Michael Ebmeyer : Instructions for use for Catalonia. Piper, Munich, Berlin 2007, p. 114 (e-book edition).
  5. ↑ a b c d Gustau Nerín: “Què volen aquesta gent?” La cançó més oportuna. In: El Nacional , November 4, 2016 (Catalan, with lyrics).
  6. ↑ Antoni Batista Viladrich: El model repressiu de la Brigada d'Investigació Social (BIS). In: Antoni Segura, Andreu Mayayo, Teresa Abelló (eds.): La dictadura franquista. La institucionalització d'un règim. Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2012, ISBN 978-84-475-3553-8 , pp. 41-52, here p. 46 .
  7. ↑ In the original: "Potser una nit / l'ascensor que semper puja / es pararà la teu pis, / i tu i jo haurem d'obrir, / i tu i jo, impotents front a la nit, / haurem d'obrir" . For the quote as well as the entire context, see Manuel Delgado, Jofre Padullés, Gerard Horta: Lluites secretes. Testimonis de la clandestinitat antifranquista (= Historia-Perspectiva. ). Publicacions i Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2012, ISBN 978-84-475-3559-0 , p. 116 f .
  8. ↑ José Colmeiro: Canciones con Historia. Cultural Identity, Historical Memory, and Popular Songs. In: Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies. Vol. 4, 2003, No. 1, pp. 31-46, here pp. 37 f., Doi : 10.1080 / 1463620032000058668 .
  9. ↑ Jaume Ayats, Maria Salicru-Malta: Singing Against the Dictatorship (1959-1975). La "Nova Cançó". In: Sílvia Martínez, Héctor Fouce (ed.): Made in Spain. Studies in Popular Music (= Routledge Global Popular Music Series. ). Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-50640-3 , p. 69 .
  10. ↑ a b c Ricard Vinyes: Sobre víctimas y vacios; ideologías y reconciliaciones; privatizaciones e impunidades. In: Ana Domínguez Rama (ed.): Enrique Ruano. Memoria viva de la impunidad del franquismo. Editorial Complutense, Madrid 2011, ISBN 978-84-9938-058-2 , pp. 255–272, here p. 256 .
  11. ↑ Enrique Ruano y la impunidad de la gente que llamaba a la puerta de madrugada - The Enrique Ruano case and its connection to the song at Cancioneros.com (Spanish); see also Natalia Junquera: No se tiró, lo mataron. In: El País , January 17, 2009 (Spanish).
  12. ↑ For example with Ana Domínguez Rama: "A Enrique Ruano lo han asesinado". Un oscuro episodio de Nahrungsmittel franquista nunca esclarecido. In: Ana Domínguez Rama (ed.): Enrique Ruano. Memoria viva de la impunidad del franquismo. Editorial Complutense, Madrid 2011, ISBN 978-84-9938-058-2 , pp. 33–59, here p. 44 .
  13. ↑ Josep Murgades: El país martipolià en temps de llarga nit. In: Àlex Broch, Ramon Pinyol i Torrents (ed.): Colloqui Miquel Martí i Pol. 1948 cinquanta anys de poesia 1998. Vic, 17 i 18 de març de 1999 (= Documents. Vol. 32). Eumo, Vic 2000, ISBN 84-7602-713-3 , pp. 217-239, here p. 222.
  14. ↑ In the original: "dramatismo desgarrador"; Fernando González Lucini: Y la palabra se hizo música. La canción de autor en España. Fundación Autor, Madrid 2006, ISBN 978-84-8048-687-3 , p. 86.
  15. ^ Carles Gámez Olalla: 50 anys "Al vent". Crònica d'una nova cançó. Universitat de València, Valencia 2009, ISBN 978-84-370-7376-7 , p. 77 .
  16. ^ A b Antonio Batista i Angel Casas: Les cancons de la Transició. In: Rafael Aracil, Andreu Mayayo, Antoni Segura (eds.): Memòria de la Transició a Espanya ia Catalunya. Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, ​​Barcelona 2003, ISBN 84-8338-407-8 , p. 265 ff., Here p. 271 .