The protest song in the Franco regime – Archives of History

The protest song in Spain had a marked growth at the end of the sixties due to the situation of political repression exerted by the Franco dictatorship. The lack of freedoms, together with a progressive fall of the European dictatorships, caused more and more voices to emerge calling for democracy and freedom of expression. And it is that this is a complicated context in which several elements that make up the protest song come together: on the one hand, a decadent and backward dictatorship tried to show itself on the international scene as an open regime; on the other, the clamor of a people whose demands varied during the 1970s, but who went from initial economic demands to protest for the reinstatement of democracy annihilated with the 1936 coup.

Origins and characteristics of the protest song

The very concept of a protest song is complicated for scholars of this subject. There is an extensive and lively debate between the defenders of the denomination of author’s song and those of the protest song, which refer to similar concepts and whose differences are, on occasions, difficult to limit. Thus, Luis Torrego Egido warns that “it is not possible to carry out a rigorous definition that sharply delimits the Song of Authors, since the limits are often not clearly marked and are blurred” (Torres Blanco, 2005: 226 ). Beyond this semantic conflict, we understand as a protest song that which arises in the final stage of Francoism and that directs a song of criticism against the dictatorship. However, to say only this is to remain at the gates of understanding a much deeper phenomenon that occurred throughout the Spanish geography.

The protest song is born from the very limits that Francoism had placed on cultural identities far removed from the officialism imposed from Madrid. And it is that, as Victor Claudín points out, «in the 1940s all signs of identity were systematically persecuted, nationalities denied» (1980: 23). The winning side of the civil war imposed a nationalist vision of music, where the main inspiration must have been Castile and Andalusia, snatching the culture of the Andalusian people in what has been known as «national-flamenquism». Flamenco became the musical reference for all of Spain, in a clear attempt by the administration to hide the cultural identities of the so-called “peripheral nationalisms”. José Manuel Costa echoes this when in 1977 he wrote about this problem (Costa, 1977):

This “flamenquism” became an identification of all the peoples of the State, and thus we were able to observe with delight how, in their travels, the Catalans were forced to clap their hands, the Galicians to emit various “jipios” or the Madrid or Asturian to wear their faralaes at any “typical” reception.

However, despite state censorship, a series of musical popular movements parallel to the great university and worker protests at the end of the decade. It was the awakening of a people eager to fly beyond the traditional songs of Joselito, Pepe Blanco, Estrellita Castro or Juanita Reina, whose songs had a strong flavor of couplets, tangos and fandangos that focused on themes such as love and traditions. . Mainly in urban areas, singer-songwriters appeared who, in the 1960s, would hatch creating various musical movements of unquestionable importance for protest songs, whose features They can be broadly divided into four:

1. It makes a strong political opposition to the dictatorship. The songs are aimed at criticizing the situation of society, claiming the lack of freedom and the desire to achieve it.
2. Looking for the rehabilitation of folklore and traditions suffocated by Francoism. Faced with the centralism of Madrid, musical cultures are born that highlight the importance of the different non-Castilian cultural identities. An example of this will be Catalan Nova Canço in Catalonia, ceibes voices in Galicia or Ez Dok Amairu in Basque Country.
3. Use of poetry of classic authors of Spanish literature. During the sixties and seventies, singer-songwriters used the poetry of Antonio Machado, Rafael Alberti or Miguel Hernández, among many others, to load their songs with beauty, with a clear language capable of connecting with the public, “without distortions to the listener” (Torredo Égido, 2005: 234).
4. Use of metaphor to circumvent Franco’s censorship. This is one of the clearest examples of how the protest song disguised its lyrics through beautiful metaphors to make strong criticism of the dictatorship. At dawnby Luis Eduardo Aute, is one of the best examples.
5. To the above characteristics are added others highlighted by Vázquez Montalbán (2005: 234-236) such as short songs of easy receptionaccompanied by catchy choruses and rhythms, emotionality of the music and the lyrics and simplicity of these, to reach the maximum possible number of people.

Thus, in a context in which greater cultural freedom and economic improvements were demanded -both by internal and international demands-, various movements appeared in the protest song scene that managed to consolidate themselves as a clear component of the anti-Francoist scene, thus contributing to its demise in the late 1970s.

The root of the Spanish protest song: the Catalan Nova Canço

The Spain of the early sixties was still anchored, despite the fact that there was a certain openness in the regime, in a strong closure towards peripheral cultural identities. In response to this, various lyrical movements were born in all areas of Spain. One of the most important and that began his career sooner was that of the Catalan Nova Canço, born in 1961 at the Mediterranean Creation Festival, although it would take its name a little later after an article by Lluis Serrahima, considered the forerunner of the movement. In 1962, the Barcelonan wrote an article for the magazine Germinabitwhere “he speaks of promoting a new cultural phenomenon in the Catalan sphere, and of doing it through song, uniting music and literature in a current message that reflects the moment in which they lived” (Aragüez Rubio, 2006: 84).

Thus, the Nova Canço had its heyday from 1962 and, fundamentally, after the various festivals that began to take place in the sixties, such as the Modern Catalan Song Festivalwhich introduced the group Els Setze Jutges and the singer-songwriter Raimon ―Ramón Pelegero Sanchis―, who from then on would promote the movement and make it famous on a national level (2006: 85). The characteristics that prevailed in the first years of Nova Canço’s life were the exclusive use of Catalan as a means of defending Catalan culture and a enormous heterogeneity within the group, which caused, in later years, a certain weakening and identity crisis in the group.

Joan Manuel Serrat was, without a doubt, one of the most representative voices of the Nova Canço, with an abundant discography and contributing to the knowledge of the Catalan language throughout Spain. His importance and melodic force was such that he managed to gain a foothold on Spanish television (such as this recital in 1968) singing songs in Catalan, something unthinkable a few years before given the great censorship exercised by the Franco regime. Catalan was advancing throughout the country, influencing new cultural movements that reclaimed their own language and traditions, and the dictatorship saw a real danger in it. With the passage of time, the singer from Barcelona began to open up to Spanish, performing interpretations of poems by Alberti, Machado, Miguel Hernández or Gabriel Celaya on albums such as Dedicated to Antonio Machado, poet, Miguel Hernandez or the single sung along with the guitar of Paco Ibáñez in 1976 Poetry is a weapon loaded with the future.

The censorship was intensifying from 1968, with the controversy of the Serrat case and his order of not going to Eurovision on behalf of Spain if he could not sing the song The, the, the in Catalan, which provoked the anger of the regime, which decided to send Massiel in his place. However, Nova Canço continued to publish a large number of songs of excellent quality, such as the following example of the song by Raimon say no:

The song was part of an album released by the author in 1971, which included ten songs, including two poems by Ausiàs March (Aragüez Rubio, 2006: 92). In this case, the say no It is a song to freedom, the rejection of everything that Francoism represented: fear, hunger, repression and the imposition of force over reason. Throughout its 23 verses, it evokes the fear experienced by oppression, post-war hunger, the blood of the imposition of fascism and the exile and imprisonment of thousands of men and women. In this case, there is no self-censorship or the lyrics are hidden by beautiful metaphors, but rather the crude reality is shown through deep and sentimental lyrics that do not hide their animosity towards the dictatorship.