via the ever-lovin’ Spencer Sundell: La Cucaracha – The Music Of The Spanish Civil War

I have a Christy Moore rewrite of Viva la Quinta Brigada that’s both moving and embarassingly cheesy. You know, folkie earnestness. Here’s links to a Christy Moore broadcast, “Christy Moore Uncovered, which includes his rewrite.

I also saw both Steve Gardner, a poet who mostly wrote about baseball, and JP Darriau, a professor of sculpture and a favorite teacher of mine, sing “Ay Carmela” at ages of about 65 around an upright piano at a party in Bloomington – apparently they both learned the song in NYC in the 30s when they were kids from parents and elder social acquaintances, some of whom had gone to Spain to fight in the Lincoln Brigade!

The Spanish Civil War will always be a part of European and 20th century history that holds special interest for me, becasue of my family’s long realtionship with Latin culture – I lived in Santiago, Chile in 1969, and was very troubled as a child by the military overthrow of Allende’s government, a US-sponsored act of state terrorism which was clearly and explicitly modeled on Franco’s initiation of civial war against an elected government in Spain.

My marriage to a child of Cuban emigrants further complexifys my realtionship to these events – my family itself is built on the history of revolution and war in the Latin world.

Observing the curious events in Venezuela recently led to some reflection on these matters – but no conclusions, only rumination.