Acracia. The libertarian country that he alludes to in his early ‘Cançó per a en Salvat-Papasseit’, a composition in which he announces his will not to enlist “sota cap Bandera & rdquor; and to become the “glossador & rdquor; of the “divine acràcia & rdquor ;. A declaration of principles and a nod to his father, Josep Serrat, who was affiliated with the anarchist CNT.
Belchite. The hometown of his mother, Ángeles Teresa, in Aragon, martyred by the bombings of the civil war. Its spectrum, and that of the generation that made its way in the postwar period and had to emigrate, conjugated above all through a female figure, is sensed sneaking between the stanzas of ‘Cançó de bressol’.
Disinherited. Characters that abound in the ‘Serratian’ lyric. Figures that remain out of focus and for whom he felt weakness in his younger days: from the familiar figure of ‘La tieta’ to the lonely prostitute of ‘La Carmeta’ passing through ‘El drapaire’ or ‘Balada per a un troubadour’ .
Exile. Prolonged stay to which he was forced after speaking out against the last executions of the Franco regime, in September 1975, statements that cost him a process of insults to the State. Mexico welcomed him for eleven months, and the album ‘… para piel de manzana’ was affected as it was distributed with difficulties in Spain.
Florida Park. In this Madrid venue he presented Serrat, in 1969, his album about Machado’s poems, and the singer-songwriter managed it for a time together with his manager José María Lasso de la Vega and the Dúo Dinamico. In 2005, it hosted a party in honor of the edition of the second volume of the tribute album ‘Serrat … you are unique!’ which was attended by the then president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Gran Rex. The Buenos Aires theater that has repeatedly welcomed him and in which he has sealed memorable nights. Serrat’s relationship with Argentina deserves its own dictionary. His first visit was in 1969 and he lived days of passionate reunion in the 80s, after the dictatorship. As a sign of his still intense pull: this fall he has filled the Gran Rex (capacity: 3,262 people) for up to eleven nights.
Helena. This woman’s name gives the title to a ‘Brelian’ composition, a reflection of a lost and impossible love, included on the album ‘Per al meu amic’ (1973). One of many that have become Serrat’s songs, along with Marta, Edurne, Irene, Lucía or Penélope.
Privacy. A luxury that he has managed to preserve despite his celebrity status. His family parameters are known (he married Candela Tiffon in 1978; he has three children, Manuel o ‘Queco’, Maria and Candela, and four grandchildren), but he has managed to keep his private sphere safe.
Judges The high priests of the ‘nova cançó’, Els Setze Jutges, whom he joined in 1965 with the number 13 on the dorsal. Under his umbrella he published his first album that year, the epé headed by the song ‘Una Guitar’. Three decades later, Serrat would pay tribute to the ‘nova cançó’ as a whole with the double album ‘Banda sonora d’un temps, d’un country’.
Kubala, Ladislao. The legendary soccer player fel Barça (1927-2002) was his greatest childhood idol, and he paid tribute to him in the song titled with his surname, in which he praised his skill with the ball. For much Pelé, Maradona and Di Stéfano, he says, nobody like the Hungarian. “Visca el coneixement / i l’alegria del joc / adorned with a toc / of fantasy & rdquor ;.
Tongue. Two are those used by Serrat in his work: the Spanish inherited from his mother and the Catalan transmitted by his father. Both will alternate after the controversial episode of Eurovision-68, when his ‘La, la, la’ in Catalan was vetoed by the Franco regime. As of the 90s, the bulk of his work will opt for Spanish. But even today, in countries like Argentina or Chile, the existence of the Catalan language is known in part thanks to Serrat.
‘Mediterranean’. The song and the album of the same title (1971), cooked on horseback from Calella de Palafrugell, Cala d’Or (Mallorca) and Mojácar (Almería), but also the geographical and mental space that it represents, and whose shadow clearly reaches until his last album in Catalan, ‘Mô’ (2006), a tribute to the island of Menorca.
Nature. Descriptive brushstrokes of the seas, mountains and landscapes dot all of his work. Songs that today can be read in an ecological key, such as ‘Pare’, ‘Plany al mar’, ‘El hombre y el agua’ or the same ‘Mediterráneo’, in which he ends up dreaming of merging “between the beach and the sky & rdquor; , giving “green to the pines and yellow to the genista & rdquor ;.
Pueblo. The daily discretion and the manners of rural life accompany many of his compositions, beginning with the youthful ‘Cançó de matinada’, which describes with evocative neatness the morning awakening of a small town anchored in its ancestral routines. A prodigious piece in Catalan that in 1967 was number one in sales throughout Spain. ‘Pueblo blanco’ is another example of that sensitivity.
‘How beautiful is Badalona’. Song from the album ‘1978’ in which, to the rhythm of pasodoble, Serrat reels a sarcastic compliment to the city, in which streets, squares and statues alternate with “that dead dog in the gutter & rdquor; and “those bricklayers in ‘samarreta’ & rdquor ;. The ‘ultra’ Platform X Catalunya party used it in a 2011 municipal ad, which led to the intervention of Serrat and his lawyers, who forced their withdrawal.
Ros-Marbà, Antoni. Hidden first behind the pseudonym of Marc Blond, and later with his own name, the conductor and composer wrapped up his first recordings, in the 60s. Throughout his discography, the singer-songwriter has had prominent accomplices: by Salvador Gratacòs and Lleó Borrell to Juan Carlos Calderón, Josep Maria Bardagí, Manel Camp or Josep Mas ‘Kitflus’, passing through the most present and enduring of all, Ricard Miralles, often considered the architect of Serrat’s sound.
Weather. The memory and the passing of the years surround songs like ‘Temps era temps’ with soft melancholy, a reflection of childhood with nods to ‘It takes it or it leaves it’ and to the verses of Quintero, León and Quiroga; the ironic ‘Posthumous Letter to Helena Francis’ or the film images of ‘The Ghosts of the Roxy’, “preferential re-run cinema that illuminated Lesseps & rdquor; square, inspired by the story by Juan Marsé.
Utopia. Title of the album published in 1992, a work with which, in the midst of the Olympic glory, Serrat, although he carried the torch through the streets of Barcelona, seemed to find himself in another place: content, experimental and dreamlike, in search of another class of collective dream. Kitflus arrangements, synthesizers and disbelieving postmodern messages: “Karl Marx is dead and buried & rdquor ;.
Verses Those of some great poets have contributed to giving splendor to his work by inspiring even entire albums. There they are ‘Dedicated to Antonio Machado, a poet’ (1969), ‘Miguel Hernández’ (1972), ‘Res no esto mesquí’ (1977), with texts by Joan Salvat-Papasseit, and the approach to the Uruguayan Mario Benedetti from ‘El south also exists’ (1985).
Wad-Ras. In the Barcelona women’s prison, Serrat sang on June 25, 1984. In addition to well-known songs from his repertoire, such as’ Para la libertad ‘,’ La tieta ‘and’ Tu nombre me saber a yerba ‘, he surprised with an assault on’ Porompompero ‘, by Manolo Escobar, which stirred up the inmates.
Xenophobia. Feeling of foreign phobia that Serrat has fought in songs like ‘Salam Rashid’, from the album ‘Sensitive Material’ (1989). A letter that anticipates the phenomenon of immigration and that he signed with the late Joan Barril.
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Yupanqui, Atahualpa. The Argentine troubadour (1908-92), author of classics such as ‘The axes of my cart’, is one of the most influential creators in Serrat’s work, along with French-speaking singer-songwriters such as Brassens, Brel or Trenet. Exceptionally he has performed his songs, such as ‘El payador perseido’ and ‘Milonga del solitaire’.
Zanfonía. In addition to an instrument of the rubbed chordophone family (also known as hurdy-gurdy or hurdy-gurdy), it is the name of the studio in which Serrat recorded records such as ‘Sombras de la China’ (1998) and ‘Cansiones’ (2000) and del record label in which he took part with musicians such as Carles Benavent and Joan Albert Amargós. Among his releases, those of artists such as Paul Fuster, Toti Soler with Ester Formosa or Loquillo’s swing album, ‘Nueve tragos’.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com