JOHN LENNON AND VICTOR JARA

Manifesto
A song by Victor Jara©Victor Jara 1973

Yo no canto por cantar ni por tener buena voz, canto porque la guitarra tiene sentido y razón. Tiene corazón de tierra y alas de palomita. Es como el agua bendita, santigua glorias y penas. Aquí se encajó mi canto como dijera Violeta guitarra trabajadora con olor a primavera, Que no es guitarra de ricos, ni cosa que se parezca, mi canto es de los andamios para alcanzar las estrellas.
Que el canto tiene sentido cuando palpita en las venas del que morirá cantando las verdades verdaderas. No las lisonjas fugaces ni las famas extranjeras, sino el canto de una lonja hasta el fondo de la tierra. Ahí donde llega todo y donde todo comienza, canto que a sido valiente siempre será canción nueva.
Notes
This was the last song Victor Jara wrote before he was murdered in Pinochet's 11 September coup in Chile in 1973. The song is sung by Francesca Ancarola on her CD Que El Canto Tiene Centido, visit her website at http://www.ancarola.scd.cl/

English lyrics
I don’t sing for love of singing or to show off my voice but for the statements made by my honest guitar for its heart is of the earth and like the dove it goes flying....endlessly as holy water blessing the brave and the dying so my song has found a purpose as Violet Parra would say.
Yes, my guitar is a worker shining and smelling of spring my guitar is not for killers greedy for money and power but for the people who labour so that the future may flower. For a song takes on a meaning when its own heart beat is strong sung by a man who will die singing truthfully singing his song.
I don’t care for adulation or so that strangers may weep. I sing for a far strip of country narrow but endlessly deep.