154 results where found for «May the Omelette Turn Over»

The Soldier (El soldado)

Song by:
Rafael Alberti (lyrics), Ángel Parra (music)
Testimony by:
Alfonso Padilla Silva
Experience in:
Campamento Prisioneros Estadio Regional, 25 December 1973
Tags:
« During Christmas 1973, approximately 660 men and 100 women were held as prisoners in the Concepción Regional Stadium. Concentration camp officials allowed us to celebrate Christmas on the pitch. We were in a corner of the pitch and we used the pole vault pit as a stage. Two professional radio broadcasters were excellent masters of ceremony, combining veiled messages with other more candid ones, all with a hefty dose of humour and good taste. They also recited poems. »
[...]
« The experience of prisoners in many concentration camps and jails throughout the country shows that engaging in cultural and artistic activity - whether it be creating and performing theatre, writing poems and stories, as well as essays, and producing crafts or music - was of vital importance in strengthening our personal and collective moral, an attitude of resistance and the sense of unity among political prisoners. Each time we engaged in artistic activity – with all the difficulties and limitations imposed by our difficult circumstance – it was an affirmation of humanity and life. Each accomplishment represented a small victory over the dictatorship. »
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The Little Cigarette (El cigarrito)

Song by:
Víctor Jara
Testimony by:
Alfonso Padilla Silva
Experience in:
Campamento Prisioneros Estadio Regional, 25 December 1973
Tags:
« During Christmas 1973, I was one of some 600 men and 100 women prisoners in Concepción Regional Stadium. The concentration camp officials allowed us to celebrate Christmas in the sports arena. To be precise, we were in one corner of the playing field and we used the pole vault pit as a stage. »
[...]
« Two professional radio broadcasters were excellent masters of ceremony, mixing covert messages with other more overt ones, all with a good dose of humour and good taste. They also recited poems. »
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Partisan Anthem (Himno guerrillero)

Song by:
Unknown. Russian melody. During the Russian Revolution, several lyrics with different ideological content circulated. This version is based on "Makhnovtchina", attributed to Nestor Makhno, Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary.
Testimony by:
Julio Laks Feller
Experience in:
Recinto DINA, José Domingo Cañas Nº 1367, September 1974
Tags:
« In late September 1974, the Soviet partisan’s song was intoned softly but with an awe-inspiring force in the José Domingo Cañas torture centre. Our comrade and beloved friend Sergio Pérez Molina, leader of the MIR who had fallen into the hands of the DINA a few days earlier, was being tortured again. We had already seen him disfigured by the blows; they had even applied electricity to a bullet wound when they shot him at the time of his arrest. Moren Brito boasted that he had run a pick-up truck over Sergio’s body. »
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Melody by Jorge Peña Hen

Song by:
Jorge Peña Hen
Testimony by:
María Fedora Peña
Experience in:
Cárcel de la Serena, October 1973
Tags:
« “Look here, Maria Fedora. I’ve brought you a treasure...” - it was the voice of my brother Juan Cristián as he crossed the doorway of our mother’s house one morning in January 1983. Peering over the staircase banister, I saw him raise his right hand with something clenched inside. He was just back from a quick trip to La Serena, and I was spending my holidays in Chile. I had travelled home to show the family my beautiful baby girl, María Paz, my first child born in Caracas. »
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Candombe for José (Candombe para José)

Song by:
Roberto Ternán
Testimony by:
Sara De Witt
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros, Tres Álamos, September 1976
Tags:
« We were in Tres Álamos barracks in September 1976. I don’t recall how many of us women were imprisoned there. I believe there were close to a hundred of us. »
[...]
« I entered one of the rooms to gather up the things on the floor and straighten up the place. I found a notebook with the owner’s name on the cover, Guacolda; she had been very meticulous about compiling the words of our songs. I still have the notebook in my house in London, and even though its pages have turned yellow with age, you can still read the lyrics of our songs. That night, dressed in our blue track suits, after having a bite to eat, we began to sing again. »
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Errant Wind (Viento errante)

Song by:
Patricio Hermosilla Vives
Testimony by:
Patricio Hermosilla Vives
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco, January 1974
Tags:
« Finally, in the Chacabuco Concentration Camp, after three days aboard the "Policarpo Toro" (a war ship which had an uncertain destination since sailing from Valparaíso in December 1973; the question was not when and where we would dock, but how we would fall overboard), I felt that death had decided to take a step back and watch from me from a little further away... »
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Today I Sing for the Sake of Singing (Hoy canto por cantar)

Song by:
Nydia Caro and Riccardo Cerratto
Testimony by:
Beatriz Bataszew Contreras
Experience in:
Calle Irán Nº 3037 / Venda Sexy / La Discotheque, 12 - 18 December 1974
Tags:
« I have never been a great music listener. Nevertheless, before the coup I used to listen to Nueva Canción, especially Quilapayún and Rolando Alarcón. I also liked cumbias, to fool around. We would dance and have fun. On the other hand, and this is more due to my family, I have always liked classical music, particularly Tchaikovsky. It stirs important things in me. It moves me. »
[...]
« The music had the purpose of covering the screams and the hubbub. Anyone in the vicinity would have taken notice of this music playing all day. Because we also have to remember that the culture of the time was quite respectful of neighbours: no one would think of blasting out music. Nowadays this does happen. I think that it DINA's legacy to society and to its successors. It’s a paradox, because you would make a horrible noise during the day but perhaps you were giving signals of something different to what our culture was at the time in our country. »
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We Shall Prevail (Venceremos)

Song by:
Claudio Iturra (lyrics) and Sergio Ortega (music)
Testimony by:
Lucía Chirinos
Experience in:
Cárcel de Mujeres Buen Pastor, La Serena, October 1973 - April 1974
Tags:
« The parish priest at Buen Pastor played the accordion. He played so beautifully. Because I played the piano, I asked him if I could borrow it. “I’ll lend it to you” he said. Discreetly I began to learn “Venceremos”, “La Internacional”, the National Anthem and the Anthem of the Police. They made us all learn the Anthem of the Police and I knew it from my dad, who was an officer. »
[...]
« While we sang, the policemen began walking towards the prison. They had surely decided to reprimand us or something worse. I quickly started playing the first chords of the National Anthem. We were singing loudly “How pure, Chile, is your blue sky”. We sang with force and courage. When they heard the National Anthem, the policemen stopped, stood to attention and stayed still in the middle of the court. They had to wait until we finished the anthem. We sang with rage: “and a refuge from oppression”. We then sang the Anthem of the Police: “Order and Fatherland is our motto…” The policemen looked at each and burst out laughing. They went back while we carried on singing, overcome with laughter. We hugged each other laughing, feeling relieved. We then went to have a nice cup of tea with crustless bread, convinced that music is also a factor of unity, peace and love. »
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The Little Fence (La rejita)

Song by:
lyrics: collective creation; music: “Jálame la pitita” by Luis Abanto Morales (Peruvian polka)
Testimony by:
Lucía Chirinos
Experience in:
Cárcel de Mujeres Buen Pastor, La Serena, October 1973 - April 1974
Tags:
« Let’s get going, would say “the lizards”, as we called the policemen because they dress all in green. I looked and looked so I wouldn’t forget anything, because I didn’t know how many years I would be locked up for. I was emotional too: one gets frightened. Against the traffic, they turn the wheel. »
[...]
« When they stripped me I had an attack of sobbing with hiccups. “Alright, let her get dressed”, said one of them. But another one arrived and said “no, all the same she should fucking undress. If Allende was a degenerate all these are prostitutes”. When you are arrested, you stop being a person. They kill first, they ask questions later. That’s what you hear from the women who are in the know. The decay wafts over from the barracks. The sickening smell doesn’t go away, despite the enforced disappearance of people. »
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You Hear It Far Away (Se escucha muy lejos)

Song by:
Collective creation
Testimony by:
Ignacio Puelma
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisoneros Ritoque, February 1975
Tags:
« 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 gift by the ocean. Gone were the torture centres, the cruellest torments seemed distant, and that perception helped us to reconstruct ourselves. Ritoque, Puchuncaví, Tres Álamos and other mass prisoner centres were seething places of activity. Despite the shortcomings and the actual fact of being in prison, movement was gushing from everywhere: courses, crafts, sports, debates, chess, theatre, literature, songs… life was throbbing after we’d lived through the worst nightmares. To go back to them was always a possibility, so much so that some of us did have to go back to the DINA's torture centres. »
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