Dictators And The Music They Love To Hate: Songs Of Rebellion
In one of his most haunting flamencos, Manuel De Paula sings, "Mare, ll?vame al colegio / a educarme la memoria" ? which translates as, "Mother, take me to school / so I can educate my memory."
This week, with special guest AJ Davila, we talk about music that was at one time forbidden, and we spend quite a bit of time in Spain ? where, under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, rock 'n' roll, twist and flamenco sometimes contained cries of freedom. We spin various songs from Munster Records and its Vampisoul imprint, which has done a fantastic job of curating a history of Spain told through music.
Lyrics tell us about what pains us, what worries us and what we value. Certain regimes' concern with what music gets aired is indicative of the ideological power a single song can contain ? whether we're talking about drug ballads banned on the radio in certain Mexican states or reggaeton's suppression by Cuban authorities.
A woman once told me that during the Argentine dictatorship, when she was a teenager, she and her friends used to buy AC/DC records, go into their basement and barely turn the volume on. They rocked out, head-banged and played air guitar in virtual silence, like mimes, so the neighbors wouldn't hear. (Rock music was frowned upon by the country's leaders.) She was my high-school literature teacher, and she told me this because 20 years later, I was a huge AC/DC fan, too. I had not been alive long enough to fully share her deep fear of the dictators; her generation swam in the depths of that horror, while mine merely waded in the shallow end of it. But although we belonged to two generations divided by a wall of terror, my teacher and I shared a common musical memory. The men with guitars had outlived the men with guns, and that's one of the reasons I love music so much.
Rhythms, melodies and instruments tell us about who we are and where we've been. Newspapers and radios can be censored, and politicians can be bought off, but the music you play in the privacy of your home ? the tune you hum in the shower, the song you play back to yourself in your head, the African beat you absentmindedly drum your fingers to, the works passed down from your grandma or your dad ? cannot be silenced so easily.
During the trujillato, the rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, bachata ? that heartbroken, guitar-plucking Caribbean music that has since invaded every Latin Top 40 station known to humankind ? was banned from many stations. It was shunned. It was vulgar, it was sexual and it was deeply Afro-Latin.
I recently spoke to a man who was a boy during those years. He recalled that during school days he would often stay with his aunt and uncle --- and while he got ready for school, his uncle would play bachatas for him. As we talked, the man smiled and told me that his uncle knew what he was doing. Many years later, this man grew up to be the iconic musician Juan Luis Guerra. He told me about how he took what his uncle taught him and crafted one of the most beautiful albums in Latin music: Bachata Rosa, which made the genre popular across the Americas. The next time you tune into Latin radio and hear that melancholy cooing over soft drum rolls like waves, remember that this music was once kept off the dial in the folly of a tyrant ? who, like many of his kind, failed to understand that you can't tame the air, nor the music that rides it.
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR.
Bachata!
In one of his most haunting flamencos, Manuel De Paula sings, "Mare, ll?vame al colegio / a educarme la memoria" ? which translates as, "Mother, take me to school / so I can educate my memory."
This week, with special guest AJ Davila, we talk about music that was at one time forbidden, and we spend quite a bit of time in Spain ? where, under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, rock 'n' roll, twist and flamenco sometimes contained cries of freedom. We spin various songs from Munster Records and its Vampisoul imprint, which has done a fantastic job of curating a history of Spain told through music.
Lyrics tell us about what pains us, what worries us and what we value. Certain regimes' concern with what music gets aired is indicative of the ideological power a single song can contain ? whether we're talking about drug ballads banned on the radio in certain Mexican states or reggaeton's suppression by Cuban authorities.
A woman once told me that during the Argentine dictatorship, when she was a teenager, she and her friends used to buy AC/DC records, go into their basement and barely turn the volume on. They rocked out, head-banged and played air guitar in virtual silence, like mimes, so the neighbors wouldn't hear. (Rock music was frowned upon by the country's leaders.) She was my high-school literature teacher, and she told me this because 20 years later, I was a huge AC/DC fan, too. I had not been alive long enough to fully share her deep fear of the dictators; her generation swam in the depths of that horror, while mine merely waded in the shallow end of it. But although we belonged to two generations divided by a wall of terror, my teacher and I shared a common musical memory. The men with guitars had outlived the men with guns, and that's one of the reasons I love music so much.
Rhythms, melodies and instruments tell us about who we are and where we've been. Newspapers and radios can be censored, and politicians can be bought off, but the music you play in the privacy of your home ? the tune you hum in the shower, the song you play back to yourself in your head, the African beat you absentmindedly drum your fingers to, the works passed down from your grandma or your dad ? cannot be silenced so easily.
During the trujillato, the rule of dictator Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, bachata ? that heartbroken, guitar-plucking Caribbean music that has since invaded every Latin Top 40 station known to humankind ? was banned from many stations. It was shunned. It was vulgar, it was sexual and it was deeply Afro-Latin.
I recently spoke to a man who was a boy during those years. He recalled that during school days he would often stay with his aunt and uncle --- and while he got ready for school, his uncle would play bachatas for him. As we talked, the man smiled and told me that his uncle knew what he was doing. Many years later, this man grew up to be the iconic musician Juan Luis Guerra. He told me about how he took what his uncle taught him and crafted one of the most beautiful albums in Latin music: Bachata Rosa, which made the genre popular across the Americas. The next time you tune into Latin radio and hear that melancholy cooing over soft drum rolls like waves, remember that this music was once kept off the dial in the folly of a tyrant ? who, like many of his kind, failed to understand that you can't tame the air, nor the music that rides it.
Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit NPR : National Public Radio : News & Analysis, World, US, Music & Arts : NPR.
Bachata!