Victor Jara

"Fences that fail and fall to the ground

  Bearing the fruit from Jara's hands."

--Calexico

On Calexico's latest record, "Carried To Dust", the opening song is titled, "Victor Jara's Hands" which was intriguing to me enough but the only investigating I did was ask my wife (who is from Mexico) if she had ever heard of him.  She hadn't but she likes Celine Dion, so I at least got that going for me, which is nice . . . I guess (rolling my eyes).  Recently I began reading a book by Pablo Neruda's widow, Matilde Urrutia, "My Life With Pablo Neruda".  The opening chapter begins at the end of her life with Pablo Neruda in their homeland of Chile with the U.S. backed September 11 1973 coup  when Augusto Pinochet overthrew the democratically elected socialist president, Salvador Allende.  It was during this chapter I saw Victor Jara's name again. As I always say, "If two or more people say I look like a horse, I had better start looking in the mirror."  Or in this case, if I see two or more Victor Jara references I had better start investigating.

Victor Jara was a singer-songwriter, teacher, poet,  political activist, and a native of Chile.  In the days following the coup Jara was publicly killed on September 15, 1973.  He was, more or less, mutilated, in Chile Stadium.  This stadium was later renamed "Estadio Victor Jara" in 2003. Legend has it the military forces cut off his hands as he began to sing protest songs.  "They are killing people."  Neruda would say before his own death in 1973, "How can you not know what happened to Victor Jara?  He is one of the mutilated, they destroyed his hands.  The body of Victor Jara, mutilated, how can you not know?  Oh my God!  If this is how they kill a songbird . . . and they say he sang and sang, which riled the soldiers." Urrutia recalled this moment in her memoirs.  Neruda, who was battling cancer but making progress died himself on September 23, 1973, indirectly as a result of this coup.  Matilde Urritia had been trying to keep disturbing news from Neruda in fear it would send him further spiraling but he found out anyway.  This explains his incredulousness to Urritia in not knowing about Jara.

In my research I also found out that Jara's name is paid homage in several song including The Clash's "Washington Bullets",

"As every cell in Chile will tell, the cries of tortured men, remember Allende in the days before, before the army came, please remember Victor Jara, in the Santiago Sadium, es verdad, those Washington Bullets again." 

I think The Clash just said in just a few song lyrics what others try to say in entire books, or er, um . . . blogs.  Jara is also mentioned in songs by U2 (One Tree Hill) and Arlo Guthrie.   Folksinger Phil Ochs, who had performed with Jara in South America, organized a benefit in Jara's memory in 1974 titled "In memory of Salvador Allende" which included the likes of Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, and Pete Seeger.

One cannot under-estimate the educational powers of music.  All it takes is to hear a song, get an ounce of curiosity, do a little research, and you become richer as a result.  I think Bruce Springsteen summed it up best in his song, "No Surrender".

"We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school."

--Bruce Springsteen