At 1979, Elisa Serna published the album Regreso a la semilla: an interesting folk record with poetic lyrics very prevalent at those years. The song that named the album was a chant demanding for the regional government, specifically for Castile (today, Castilla y León), that many regions was demanding: actually, Spain is divided in autonomics governments, but tied to a central government. In her lyric, Elisa makes refferences to the history of Castile: the Revolt of the Comuneros (or Commoners), according to some specialists, the first bourgeois revolution in the world (and, under my point of view, their right), to explain that since, that day, unfairly, Castile was assimilated to the “Spanish Empire”. That conception marked years of reactionary ideas about Castile is the real Spain, and so was through the Francoist dictatorship. With this burning Castilian folk melody, with that delightful dulzaina, Elisa explain all that:
Regreso a la semilla
Si la tripa del pandero
fuera el campo de mi tierra,
rompería mis muñecas
golpeando las llanuras
hasta que su muerta lenta
retumbara en las alturas.
¡Muerte lenta vete ya!,
que la lucha campesina
ha vuelto a resucitar
con rabia tercermundista
y tractores jornaleros
que invaden autopistas.
Regreso a la semilla
que esparcieron
por tierras de Castilla
los Comuneros,
que ya hace cinco siglos
que hemos perdido
el fuero p’a regirnos
al libre albedrío.
Se invaden autopistas
imitando a la dulzaina,
que nunca sonó en palacios,
sino en plazas y mercados
buscando eco en un pueblo
al que nunca consultaron
los que hacían el imperio.
Ronca suena la dulzaina
de tanto querer gritar
¡que Castilla no hizo España!
que perdió en Villalar,
pongo sus campos resecos
en prueba de honestidad.
Regreso a la semilla
que esparcieron
por tierras de Castilla
los comuneros,
que ya hace cinco siglos,
y no me olvido
del fuero p’a regirnos
al libre albedrío.
Campesinos castellanos,
¡levantemos la cabeza!,
se empieza a elevar un viento
que limpiará la meseta
y que apartará del grano
tanta cizaña y maleza.
Sopla fuerte viento amigo,
llévate a Caín de aquí,
métete en mil dulzainas,
infla el pendón carmesí,
que se acerque la alegría
que late en la Autonomía.
Regreso a la semilla
que esparcieron
en tierras de Castilla
los comuneros,
que ya hace cinco siglos,
y no me olvido
del fuero p’a regirnos
al libre albedrío.
Libre albedrío, niña,
¡echa salero!
igual que derrocharon los comuneros,
que ya hace cinco siglos
que hemos perdido
el fuero p’a regirnos
al libre albedrío.
¡Ahora la buena!
Que ya hace cinco siglos
que hemos perdido
el fuero p’a regirnos
al libre albedrío.
Back to the seed
If the belly of the tambourine/ were the field of my land,/ I shall break my wrists/ beating the plains/ till its slow dead/ echoes in the heights.// Slow dead, go out right now!,/ for the peasant struggle/ has reborn again/ with a Third World rage/ and labourer tractors/ that invade the highways.// Back to the seed/ that was spread/ all through the lands of Castile/ by the Commoners (1),/ because it’s five centuries/ we’ve lost/ the charter to rule ourselves/ by our freewill.// The highways are invaded/ imitating the dulzaina,/ that never was played in palaces,/ but in squares and markets/ looking its echoe in a people/ who never was consultated/ by those who was building the empire.// The dulzaina is hoarse/ of so wanting to shout/ that Castile didn’t build Spain,/ because it was defeated at Villalar (2),/ I put its very arid fields/ as an evidence of my honesty.// Back to the seed/ that was spread/ all through the lands of Castile/ by the Commoners,/ because it’s five centuries,/ and I don’t forget it/ the charter to rule ourselves,/ by our freewill.// Castilian peasants,/ arise our heads!/ A wind has begun to rise/ that shall clean the upland/ and shall separate from the grain/ so much weeds and scrub.// Blow hard, friendly wind,/ take Cain away from here,/ get in in thousand of dulzainas,/ blow up the crimson pennon (3),/ may get close the joy/ that is beating in the Autonomy.// Back to the seed/ that was spread/ all through the lands of Castile/ by the Commoners,/ because it’s five centuries,/ and I don’t forget it/ the charter to rule ourselves,/ by our freewill.// Freewill, girl,/ *pour salt!* (4)/ as the commoners radiated,/ because it’s five centuries/ we’ve lost/ the charter to rule ourselves/ by our freewill.// And now comes the good one!/Because it’s five centuries/ we’ve lost/ the charter to rule ourselves/ by our freewill.
Elisa Serna
(1) The Revolt of the Commoners inspired many of the Castilian regionalist. Many songwriters and folk groups put their ideas in songs: Amancio Prada and Nuevo Mester de Juglaría sung the fragments of the epic poem about that historical fact, writen by Luis López Álvarez. An example and a resume of that can be read here.
(2) It was at the Battle of Villalar where, finally, the Imperial troops of Charles I of Spain and V of Germany and Adrian of Utrecht (pope Adrian VI to be), defeated the Commoners knights of Castile. So, if Castile was defeated by his own king, it couldn’t be, as Ortega y Gasset and Miguel de Unamuno said, the spinal column of Spain, whatever it may mean.
(3) It’s atribuited to the Commoners, as a sign, a crimson or purple pennon. In fact, the crimson or purple pennon was the flag of the liberal guerrilleros against Ferdinand VII, in the XIX century, but stayed as the regional sign of Castile. The most of the Castilian provinces and cities have flags in crimson or purple, even those that anytime belonged to Castile (for example, Jaén).
(4) A dancig shout of the Castilian folksongs; it means an invitation to dance the play with more grace and spirit. Obviously, it has to stay literal for linking with the following verse.
La Zamarra de Gustavo 