Silvio Rodríguez – Al final de este viaje (1978)

Day Three of the Revolutionary Music Experiment

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Silvio Rodríguez
“Al final de este viaje 1968/70”
Released 1978

1. Canción del elegido
2. Familia la propiedad privada y el amor
3. Ojalá
4. Era esta pariendo un corazon
5. Resumen de noticias
6. Debo partirme en Dos
7. Oleo de mujer con sombrero
8. Aunque no este de moda
9. Que se puede hacer con el amor
10. Al final de este viaje en la vida

Silvio Rodríguez was a driving force behind the nueva trova movement of folk song in Cuba, the counterpart to the nueva canción music happening elsewhere in Latin America. But unlike artists like Victor Jara and Mercedes Sosa, I spent far too long of my life being unaware of his greatness. I have two theories on why this might be, which are not mutually exclusive. 1) I have an allergy to most music recorded after 1980, and since that is the decade when Silvio really became a huge international success, it’s possible I was just avoiding him for purely medical reasons. Or, 2) the fact that I am a citizen of a country that tried to destroy his and, failing that, suppress it in any way possible.

Whatever the case, I am thankful to a dear friend and a card-carrying member of the American Socialist Party for turning me on to Silvio, as well as other things. By which I just mean music, of course. Like helping me to finally “get” Charlie Garcia by dropping some Sui Generis on me. It’s friends like that who make this journey worthwhile.

Although this is Silvio Rodríguez’s second LP, all of the material on it was written while he was working on a fishing boat in 1969 and, according to him, writing more than 10 songs a day or something like that. Unlike his first album “Días y flores” which had a backing band on it, this record is just Silvio and his guitar. The result is a pretty stunning experience. Although song titles like “La familia, la propiedad privada y el amor” make you expect heavy-handed paeans to Engels, his songs are much more subtle than that and force the listener to hear them as personally as the writer felt them. His intimacy and romanticism are, in that sense, not terribly different than what Robert Wyatt (yesterday’s featured artist) does in his best work. His particular way of reminding us that the personal is political develops even further on his next record, Mujeres.

“Ojalá” is easily his most famous composition and its anthemic tension makes it pretty easy to see why. If you go and look around Youtube you can find clips of him playing this live before audiences that are singing every word. Kind of boring to watch, actually, as I’d much rather hear the man himself. This reminds me, I have a third theory in this blog post. 3) If the Domino Theory had been anything other than a bunch of jingoism, the opening guitar figure of Ojalá would have taken the place of the opening stanzas of Stairway to Heaven as the most overplayed guitar part in popular music. “Resumen de Noticias” is also wonderful and rich with strong melodies as is the epic “Debo Partirme en Dos”, although the latter has a “b” part with a chord progression that annoys the living hell out of me for some reason, and song goes on about one minute too long. “Que Se Puede Hacer con el Amor” is f-ing gorgeous as well, and the the last track is good enough to name a whole album after it.

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Silvio Rodríguez – Al final de este viaje (1978) in 320kbs em pee tree

Silvio Rodríguez – Al final de este viaje (1978) in FLAC LOSSLESS AUDIO