RIP Facundo Cabral

Facundo Cabral, the great Argentine protest singer was brutally murdered by Guatemalan guerillas on Saturday while on tour. He was 74. In the USA we tend to think that protest begins (and for some of us, ends) with Bob Dylan, but Cabral was a source of optimism, of protest, and of a newly imagined world during the darkest days of dictatorships and repression in Latin America.

His music and concerts were part spoken word, part seance, part music, and part social justice. Exiled from Argentina in 1976, he only returned after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1984. His first success was the breath-taking “No Soy de Aquí, ni Soy de Allá” (“I’m Not From Here, I’m Not From There”).

A rough translation:

I like the Sun
Alice and the pigeon
good cigar and the Spanish guitar
Skip walls and open windows
and when a woman cries.

I love wine as much as flowers
and the lovers but no Lords
I love to be a friend of thieves
and the songs of Cabral.

I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.
I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.

UNLESS THE PEOPLE THE SINGS THE SONGS
SONGS ARE NOT AND WHEN THE SINGS THE PEOPLE
NO ONE KNOWS THE AUTHOR
SEEKS YOUR THAT YOUR SONGS GO TO THE PEOPLE
TO STOP THAN TO DUMP THE HEART IN THE POPULAR SOUL
WHAT IS LOST OF GLORY WINS THE ETERNITY.

THE BRUSH THAT PAINTS
NOR THE TIME WHAT TO DELETE AND NO ONE IS TO ENCOURAGE
TO CORRECT THE NON PAINTED FLAT WHO
YOU HAVE WANTED TO BUT WHO KNOW PAINT.

I like to always be drawn in the sand
or bicycle to pursue any or all
the time to watch the stars (if possible with)
(Paloma in the trigal).

I'm not from here nor am I from there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.
I'm not from here nor am I there
I have no age or future
and being happy is my color of identity.

(Thanks to YY.)