189 results where found for «Today I Sing Just for the Sake of Singing»

To Be Seventeen Again (Volver a los diecisiete)

Music piece by:
Violeta Parra
Testimony by:
Gabriela Durand
Experience in:
Recinto CNI, Cuartel Central Borgoño, 1980
Tags:
« 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. »
[...]
« I thought of Carlos and the other comrades who were being kept there, whose feet were the only thing I could see. I told myself that I was singing it for him, and that I would forget everything that was going on. »
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They Say the Homeland Is (Dicen que la patria es)

Music piece by:
Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio
Testimony by:
Sergio Reyes Soto
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973 - 1974
Tags:
« This song, like so many others, was not at all “captive”. The revolutionary songs we sang behind bars imbued us with a sense of freedom. Rolando Alarcón, and later Quilapayún, introduced “Dicen que la patria es” (or “Canción de soldados”) to Chile. »
[...]
« Freedom songs travelled with those who sang them. This song travelled from Pudeto Military Base in Punta Arenas, to Dawson Island, to the Municipal Stadium occupied by the Air Force, and then to the Punta Arenas Jail. However, I don’t recall singing it much at the Cochrane Military Base next to Los Ciervos River, to the south of Punta Arenas. »
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Song of a Middle-Class Man (Canción de un hombre medio)

Music piece by:
Sergio Vesely
Testimony by:
Sergio Vesely
Experience in:
Cárcel de Valparaíso, 1976
Tags:
« In our political discussions, we always spoke disdainfully of the middle class. In the view of the Marxist ideologues in prison, that sector of society supported the dictatorship and it was necessary to reverse that trend. »
[...]
« I forgot my troubles and the idea occurred to me to describe a typical middle-class guy, somewhat submissive and timorous, modestly singing verses that end with him saying that phrase we so hoped to hear him say: “now I like the reds”. »
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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
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Isla Dawson, 1973
Tags:
« We had a comrade who sang beautifully. He was called Peye and was a student at the State Technical University. »
[...]
« When I met Peye again in the Alpha Barracks, he started singing the song 'Ve y díselo a la lluvia' ('Go tell it to the rain'), in the most spectacular voice. »
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Oh Saving Victim (O salutaris Hostia)

Music piece by:
text by Saint Thomas Aquinas; music by Lorenzo Perosi
Testimony by:
Roberto Navarrete
Experience in:
Cárcel de Santiago, November 1973 - April 1974
Tags:
« The political prisoners’ cell block in Santiago Prison was established when they transferred many people from the National Stadium in October or November 1973. »
[...]
« We had a good time in the rehearsals. All of us who were there enjoyed singing. »
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Chacabuco Mass (Misa chacabucana)

Music piece by:
Ángel Parra and Ariel Ramírez
Testimony by:
Luis Cifuentes Seves
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Chacabuco, January - February 1974
Tags:
« This song is the second track on the cassette recorded in the Chacabuco prison camp by the band Los de Chacabuco, formed by Ángel Parra and led by him until his release. At the time that the cassette was recorded, Ángel had already been freed and Ernesto Parra had become the group's conductor. »
[...]
« It is interesting to note that Ángel was the only truly religious member in Los de Chacabuco. Nevertheless, the other members joined him enthusiastically and respectfully in singing these songs, essentially as a way of acknowledging the attitude of the Army chaplain Varela, who always treated the prisoners with great respect and solidarity. »
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How We Resemble Each Other (En qué nos parecemos)

Music piece by:
Unknown. Popularised by Quilapayún
Testimony by:
Scarlett Mathieu
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Cuatro Álamos, 1974
Tags:
« In Cuatro Álamos, I was profoundly marked by the singing of a current detained-disappeared named Juan Chacón. He sang ‘En qué nos parecemos’, a love song from the Spanish Civil War. It remained engraved in me because that comrade disappeared from Cuatro Álamos. »
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Under my Skin (A flor de piel)

Music piece by:
Julio Iglesias
Testimony by:
César Montiel
Experience in:
Colonia Dignidad, April 1975
Tags:
« At the beginning of the 1970s, I met Carmen, my comrade, my love, at the Juventudes Comunistas of Talca. We had the life of young idealists, sharing our everyday, living this revolutionary process so beautifully. »
[...]
« Later, I became more receptive and began to enjoy listening to the guard coming to sing to us. I don’t remember him singing with arrogance or violence. He arrived friendly and stealthily, and left singing or humming. »
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El bimbó

Music piece by:
Georgie Dann
Testimony by:
César Montiel
Experience in:
Colonia Dignidad, April 1975
Tags:
« I have a story about 'El bimbó', a song that shaped us in those difficult moments in Colonia Dignidad. It was a song with a tropical rhythm that was very trendy in the 1970s. It was played every day on the radio. Also on Eurovision, in European festivals, and on the TV programme 300 Million. »
[...]
« If we heard them singing “El bimbó”, it was because they were beating another comrade like a bombo. When the song began, you knew what was waiting for you. »
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Song to the Pampa (Canto a la pampa)

Music piece by:
poem by Francisco Pezoa Astudillo set to music by Quilapayún
Testimony by:
Renato Alvarado
Experience in:
Campamento de Prisioneros Cuatro Álamos, February 1975
Tags:
« The first song that we managed to sing was Quilapayún's setting of the poem Canto a la Pampa (Song to the Pampa), by the anarchist poet Francisco Pezoa Astudillo, which recounts one of the bloodiest episodes of the class struggle in Chile: the massacre of the Santa María school in Iquique in December 1907. The prisoners of the large Room 13 of Cuatro Álamos camp sang it complete and as a chorus around February 1975. »
[...]
« Rafael knew most of it, and together we managed to reconstruct the complete lyrics. Singing it, in that place, at that moment, was an impulse that came in handy. »
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