A Life in Song

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She’s one of Chile’s great legends. The first time she sang abroad was in Warsaw. Her songs are found in the repertoires of Mercedes Sosa, Buena Vista Social Club, U2 and Faith No More. In her most famous song, she paid tribute to her life; six months later, she took her own life in a circus tent.

Gracias a la vida que me ha dado tanto (“Thank you to the life that has given me so much”) – so begins the song familiar to practically everyone across Latin America.

When Violeta Parra enters a studio in Santiago de Chile to record this song in August 1966, she is 49 years old, with two marriages behind her, 10 albums recorded, at least one big heartbreak, and considerable debts.

The song will see dozens of interpretations, and its author – the pioneer of the Latin American protest song – will one day be cited by the Pope and the President of Chile. Half a century later, Rolling Stone magazine will recognize the album Últimas composiciones (“Latest Compositions”) as the greatest Chilean album of all time. Engaged and political, ‘La Violeta’ will become the voice not only of Chile but of the entire continent.

In a metallic, mesmerizing voice, she sings:

Thank you to the life that has given me so much
It gave me two eyes, when I open them
I can perfectly distinguish black from white

And in the high sky its starry background
And in the crowd the man that I love […]
Thank you to the life that has given me so much
It gave me the steps of my tired feet
With them I have traversed cities and puddles
Beaches and deserts, mountains and plains
And your house, your street and your courtyard.

Gracias a la vida is a great hymn to life. Yet just before Violeta Parra recorded this song, she had tried to commit suicide.

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Born in 1917, she was a hippie before the hippies arrived, the grandmother and mother of Latin American

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Translation: Kate Webster

Publish date: 13.09.2019

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Jan Błaszczak:

Born in 1987. He works as a program department employee at the Ursynów Cultural Center "Alternatywy." Author of the book "The Dom: New York Bohemia on the Polish Lower East Side," which was published in 2018 in the American series by Wydawnictwo Czarne. He has also published articles in magazines such as "Polityka," "Machina," "Wprost," and "Gazeta Magnetofonowa," and as a reporter, he has collaborated with Program II of Polish Radio.

Although he sang about the rights of his disadvantaged countrymen, Israel Kamakawiwoʻole only registered in the general consciousness as the ‘gentle giant’ who played the American standards.

Israel Kamakawiwoʻole is one of the symbols of Hawaii. One can argue about the artistic significance of his work, but one can also see the difficult history of the island nation reflected in the fate of this musician, as if peering into the waters of the Pacific Ocean. This history speaks not only through his life story and lyrics. The way Kamakawiwoʻole’s songs were received – so strongly correlated with the nationality of the listener – also says as much about the fate and misery of the Hawaiians. Considering that these two perspectives on the creativity of the artist, who died in 1997, cannot be reconciled, one could say that he warranted two biographies: the local and the global; the prosaic and the Hollywood. One of them could have been written by the left-wing historian Howard Zinn, the second could have been filmed by Howard Hawks in between shooting scenes for Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. It is easy to guess which would hold more truth; it is easy to guess which would be more popular.

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The Double Life Of Israel

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