384 results where found for «How Can I Describe This to You?»


You Hear It Far Away (Se escucha muy lejos)

Music piece by:
Collective creation
Testimony by:
Ignacio Puelma
Experience in:
« The sound of the sea was carried over the cabins of the Ritoque Prison Camp by the wind. It was the daily music given to us as a gift by the ocean. »
[...]
« That was how the prisoners organised the Ritoque Song Festival. My family had sent me a guitar. Improvising, I came across a few chords that sounded good to me, and I used them to create a melody. It was starting material. »
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With the Sprouts I Sowed (Y con brotes de mi siembra)

Music piece by:
Andrés Rivanera (lyrics) and Eugenio Moglia (music). Popularised by Los Moros and Jorge Yáñez.
Testimony by:
Guillermo Orrego Valdebenito
« In Chacabuco there were two theatres: one that was very beautiful and was linked to the old saltpetre works, where it is claimed (wrongly as it happens) that Caruso once performed, and another theatre that was inside the concentration camp. »
[...]
« In those shows, there was an outstanding contribution by our comrade Servando, whose nickname was ‘Venancio,’ and who had a preference for performing songs of Tito Fernández, ‘El Temucano’. Venancio also performed work by other songwriters. »
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Caliche

Music piece by:
Calatambo Albarracín
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco, December 1973 - February 1974
« Los de Chacabuco, a band founded and conducted by Ángel Parra, arranged this song called "Caliche". It was sung several times during the Saturday shows at the Chacabuco concentration camp. At the farewell concert for Angel, Alberto Corvalán recorded it on cassette, and a subsequent LP was produced from that cassette. »
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Lament for the Death of Augusto the Dog (Lamento a la muerte del perro Augusto)

Music piece by:
Sergio Vesely
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
« Augusto the dog (not to be confused with the journalist Augusto Olivares, affectionately nicknamed 'Augusto the Dog', who was murdered in the Presidential Palace on 11 September 1973), was the mascot of the political prisoners held at the Ritoque concentration camp, and accompanied his master when the military junta decided to close that prison and transfer the inmates to the neighbouring Puchuncaví concentration camp. »
[...]
« The soldiers guarding us put up with him, although in truth they couldn’t stand the animal. They never lost an opportunity to show how much they disliked him. The situation became critical for Augusto when the soldiers realised that he had the same name as the dictator. »
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The Wall (La muralla)

Music piece by:
Nicolás Guillén (lyrics) and Quilapayún (music)
Testimony by:
Domingo Lizama
« In prison, there was a guy who played the guitar. He cheered up the afternoons in the cell. We all sang with him. »
[...]
« When I listen to 'La Muralla' ('The Wall'), I remember an old Spaniard who was a prisoner with us. He was 70-something years old. Because there were no showers, he would wash with cold water in the sink, and he would say 'I want to die in prison so the stigma of my death falls upon these dogs'. That was the beginning of a campaign that the prisoners ran to have a shower cabin installed. »
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Let’s Break the Morning (Rompamos la mañana)

Music piece by:
René “Popeye” Cárdenas Eugenin
Testimony by:
María Soledad Ruiz Ovando
Experience in:
« Music was very important for us (my mother Sylvia, my sister Alejandra and myself) while my dad, Daniel Ruiz Oyarzo, 'el Negro Ruiz', was imprisoned during the dictatorship, when Alejandra was seven and I was four. »
[...]
« So that’s how we, very young girls, learned to sing 'Let's Break the Morning', a song that soon joined the repertoire we had been taught by my mother. »
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To Be Seventeen Again (Volver a los diecisiete)

Music piece by:
Violeta Parra
Testimony by:
Gabriela Durand
« I was 18, and already I had been tortured on the parrilla several times. One day I was with some other comrade prisoners, and as sometimes happened, the guards put some music on. »
[...]
« With that mixture of fear, of wondering what would happen if you didn’t sing, afraid of being out of tune, of how your voice was going to project, of not knowing if you were going to be told off, and of knowing that in any case, they were laughing at you - the fear of ridicule. It was like torture - an intense form of it. »
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A Finger-Picked Cueca from a Solidary Companion (Cueca punteada de un solidario)

Music piece by:
Sergio Vesely
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
« It is true that the hard experience of torture and prison unified us and at times even generated strong ties of friendship among the prisoners. »
[...]
« I wrote this song while at Camp Melinka, thinking openly about our flaws. Thinking about the double standards that ruled our daily behaviour: talking about love on one hand and feeding hatred on the other. Thinking about how far we were from living what we preached every day: to live together in equality, in peace, in brotherhood and in solidarity with everyone. »
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Candombe for José (Candombe para José)

Music piece by:
Roberto Ternán
Testimony by:
Alejandro Olate
« The youngest among us, aged 17 or even 16 years, did the heaviest work on Dawson Island. We had to fell trees, cut them, split them in two, cut them into wedges, and walk the several hundred meters back to the barracks carrying the logs on our shoulders. »
[...]
« At some specific moment, we were able to approach the commanders and the guards in a different way. I was one of several comrades who proposed the idea of putting on a show on the weekends, in order to entertain, to unwind, and to relax from the constant psychological pressure and torture. »
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Go Tell It to the Rain (Ve y díselo a la lluvia)

Music piece by:
Clan 91
Testimony by:
Eduardo Ojeda
« We had a comrade who sang beautifully. He was called Peye and was a student at the State Technical University. »
[...]
« It was really nice because when we returned to the barracks, we felt like true musicians. Peye wrote a song. I remember that he showed it to me. It was written with the Viña del Mar Song Festival in mind. »
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