January 2020 - Reflexiones Violetanas

In 2019 I read a fantastic biography of Violeta Parra by Victor Herrero called "Después de vivir un siglo - una biografía de Violeta Parra" (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36389258-despu-s-de-vivir-un-siglo-una-biograf-a-de-violeta-parra). The mind boggles how she lived such a full life in such a short time (having died at age 50).

As I read I highlighted all my favourite stories about her and that little collection of insights was, much like the woman herself, full of complexity and contradiction. It seems like she could be fawning and cantankerous, nurturing and dismissive, dedicated and mercurial, all in the space of an afternoon. I think this whirlwind of passion and chaos was the source of her genius and her fatal flaw and it both gave us and took away too soon the greatest South American artist of the 20th century.

The lyrics are essentially a pulling together of those highlighted stories, albeit some references are fairly oblique. Included at the end is a mini poem that Pablo Neruda wrote for Violeta for one of her birthdays, during the time that she moved in the cultural elite circles that her brother Nicanor inhabited. Musically, the song is a traditional (ie. folk) waltz or, to be more correct, a vals, which is a musical form Violeta used a lot herself. Cesar and Rick helped me tidy up the melodic parts and the structure a bit in the version that we recorded for 'global'.

Qué me creo yo

Pa’ dedicarte un verso

Tú que demandaste

Un terremoto a Dios

Y nunca enjaulaste

Pájaro sin plan de vuelo

Cuecas de espalda faltan

Pa’ sacar la voz

Tu vida y tu canción

No tomaron línea recta

Con pasión y furia

Abordaste tus amores

Tu poder y la carga

De no hacer la vista gorda

Reveló lo esencial

En tus canciones

Fue tu gran ejemplo

Que siguieron tantos miles

De odiar las matemáticas

Y amar los remolinos

Muy breve fue tu luz

Pero igual la más brillante

Que ilumina aún

En tus poemas tan divinos

Tu vida y tu canción

No tomaron línea recta

Con pasión y furia

Abordaste tus amores

Tu poder y la carga

De no hacer la vista gorda

Reveló lo esencial

En tus canciones

Permíteme decir que eres

La que yo mas quiero

Y no de alma sola

Sino de cuerpo entero

"Estás Violeta Parrón

Violeteando la guitarra

Guitarreando el guitarrón

Entró la Violeta Parra"

Translation

Who do I think I am

To dedicate a verse to you,

You who demanded

An earthquake from God,

And never caged

The free-flying bird.

More cuecas sung lying down

Are needed to raise my voice.

Your life and your song

Never followed a straight line.

With passion and fury

You approached your loves.

Your power and your burden

Of not looking away from pain

Revealed the essential

In your songs.

It was your great example

That so many thousands followed,

Of hating mathematics

And loving whirlwinds.

Your light was too brief

But still the most brilliant,

That continues to illuminate

Through your divine poems.

Your life and your song

Never followed a straight line.

With passion and fury

You approached your loves.

Your power and your burden

Of not looking away from pain

Revealed the essential

In your songs.

Permit me to say

That you are the one I love most,

And not just in my soul,

But with my whole existence.

"You are, Violeta Parron,

Violet-ing the guitar,

Strumming the guitarron,

Entered Violeta Parra"