Most Americans can relate to the quote:
“If You Are Not a Liberal at 25, You Have No Heart and If You Are Not a Conservative at 35 You Have No Brain”
Because it explains how some individuals change their political orientation as they grow older. However, this political terminology has a very different meaning in different locales and geographies.
For most Latinos between 40-60 years old, the Cuban Nueva Trova and its strong political content inspired by Fidel Castro’s revolution was a way to escape the banalities of life and concentrate on socialism, injustice, sexism, US colonialism, racism and other “serious” issues of the times.
Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanes were key figures in this folk music protest movement who had full support from Castro’s regime to write and sing pro-revolution songs applauding causes to mainly annoy the U.S. government. Such is the case of “Playa Giron” a song that tells the story of the beach which was a landing site during the infamous ‘Bay of Pigs’, the 1961 failed attack on Cuba engineered by the CIA, take a listen:
I don’t expect you to really understand the lyrics, so I copied their translation just so you can get an idea of Silvio Rodriguez’s ability to combine poetry and politics.
My fellow poets,Taking into accountThe latest trends in poetry,If you would allow me to ask (I feel that I must)What kind of adjectives should one use to writeA poem about a ship?Without sounding sentimental,Old fashioned,Or sounding like a polemical pamphletIf I should I use wordsLike Cuban fishing fleetAnd Girón beach
My fellow musicians,Taking into accountToday’s daring polytonal songs,If you would allow me to ask (I feel that I must)What type harmonies should one use to writeThe song about this shipWith men who hardly had a childhoodMen who are just tough sailors on deckMen black, red and blue,The men who populate Girón beach
My companions in historyTaking into accountHow unforgiving the truth must be,If you would allow me to ask (I really feel that I must)What should I say? Which rules should I respect?If someone steals food and then gives up his life,What should we do?How far should we follow these truths?How much do we really know?Well, let them write the story,Their own story, the men of Girón beach
Fidel Castro is finally dead: hasta la vista baby! He was a bully and a thug, an opportunist who rule through fear at the expense of life and individual rights. My hope is that prosperity, freedom (and especially brains), return to Cuba and its people as maybe the only good thing to be salvaged from this half-century of wreckage is the music from the Nueva Trova.
