Patxi Andión is one of the most singular Spanish songwriter. Having a Basque origins, he grows in Madrid, where he makes all his career. Being a lover of the French songwriters music, he went to France to perform; there he mets great songwriter and integral artist Jacques Brel. In Madrid, he began to record EPs in 1968: "Rogelio", "Manuela" (based on a Loyalist Spanish Civil War song), "A quien corresponda" (to whom it may concern)… All of them in a French style. With his LPs he get closer to a kind of pop music, but still with a tremendous poetry by his own. If we could define Patxi in a word, this should be individualist. Patxi’s poetry, influenced by Lorca, Miguel Hernández, Machado, etc., is one of the most originals and powerful in the Castilian songwriter movement. Some of their LPs are Joxe Maria Iparragirre (his unique LP in Basque), based upon the poems of Basque poet Joxe Maria Iparragirre; Once canciones entre paréntesis (Eleven songs between parenthesis) and A donde el agua (where the water), from which is this song.
The title “Soneto 37/ 73” (Sonet 37/ 73) maybe refers to the period 1937 (Spanish Civil War)-1973, when he makes the song, and so be a kind of lament for a lost literature: social poetry, that begun in Spain about ‘34 approximately. The general Franco’s triumph over democracy suposed, among many other things, the defeating of this literature and its punishment to many writers (Lorca, killed at 1936; Machado and Alberti, exiled; Miguel Hernández, jailed to death…); meanwhile, those other writers, the practicers of the so called pure poetry, aligned with the winner side, became on the Laureates fascist regime’s official poets: a poetry disconnected of reality, that talks of God, love and the beauty of the world, while Hitler was invading Polonia and the II World War was beginning. Andión protests against that literature, made only for a few people, and vindicates the poetry for a majority: a poetry that talks about people, specially the poor people, and its tribulations.
Soneto 37/ 73
Navegando voy por mi silencio,
una carga de fichajes y escayolas,
una palabra escrita en el desierto,
una muerte interrumpida en cada hora
y ese silencio macho hasta la frente
me hace saltar la brisa de las manos,
me hace volcar mi entraña de repente
y voy pariendo cantos como clavos.
Quiero atrapar del pelo la mañana,
quiero exprimir el cielo y que despierte
de esa quietud gravosa y casquivana,
quiero salvar la fuerza de los dientes
para cantar de cerca, cantar de cerca y gritar alto
que hacen falta equipajes en la gente.
Y es que el canto que no sirva para todos,
ese canto que ni abrigue ni despierte
es un lujo inaceptable por sí sólo,
es una pompa de jabón sobre un susurro,
es un paso en el vacío, es un hueco,
la cienmilésima parte de un murmullo,
porque el que canta bajo canta solo
y es el suyo un canto para adentro,
y racionan la voz y dan un poco,
y así transforman demandas en lamentos;
y a mí me faltan horas y sobran silencios
no quiero poner volumen a mi canto,
no puedo cantar bajo sin desprecio,
no puedo cantar solo, no tengo tiempo.
Sonet 37/ 73
I go sailing through my silence,/ a load of signings and casts,/ a word written on the desert,/ an interrupted death at every hour// and that silence male to the forehead/ makes the breeze to jump out from my hands,/ makes me turn over my involves suddenly/ and I’m giving birth songs like spikes.// I want to catch the morning by its hair,/ I want to squeeze the sky and may it wakes up/ from that burdensome and feckless stillness,// I want to save the strength from the teeth/ to sing nearly, sing nearly and cry aloud/ that is needed baggages to the people.// And that’s because the song that doesn’t help for everyone,/ that song that doesn’t wrap up nor awake/ it’s an unacceptable luxe in itself,/ it’s a bubble over a whisper,/ it’s a step on the vacuum, it’s a hollow,/ the hundred thousandth part of a murmur,/ because who sings low sings alone/ and that’s his a song inwards,/ and they ration voice and give a little,/ and so they change demands in laments;/ and I that lack hours and spare silences/ don’t want to put a volume on my singing,/ I can’t sing low without contempt,/ I can’t sing alone, I have no time.
At El Rastro, March 9, 1973
Letra y música: Patxi Andión
LP: A donde el agua
La Zamarra de Gustavo 