Press play: some of the mythical songs, commented by Jesús

«The commitment to the people we had around us (at recitals, in social movements, a little everywhere) had led us to prepare songs that linked to the “important” themes (amnesty, freedom, camaraderie…), other related ones. also with Logroño and La Rioja (“From Monday to Saturday”, “My sleeping town” and more). So I already had a lyric waiting to be put to music when we landed after a concert in Bañares, at Carlos Coello’s house (a situation: August 1977). A friend whistled to us, and we recorded the town’s dances. In reality, they were the dances of the entire environment, which we have always called “Zarratón” because that is how Maestro Pinedo always considered it.

When I heard one of them, I knew it was what I was looking for. “La Rioja exists”, with some licenses of its own, corresponds to the one that Eliseo Pinedo studied as dance number 2. The most important thing is that that song has always accompanied us in all the concerts and became, in some way, an unofficial anthem of La Rioja, its people and its autonomous efforts. Until today”

«This is one of the songs that always motivated Carmen and me the most. The lyrics, to which I set music, were from a great friend and companion in many endeavors of those years, Julián Rezola. And it reflects very well his supportive philosophy and his pedagogical efforts. It was also the title of a cassette that we recorded in Barcelona, ​​the two of us alone, in 1976.

«It is the title of our first LP (recorded in 1977, already as Carmen, Jesús e Iñaki), but above all it is a text by Honorio Cadarso, who left us a few days ago, and which perfectly combined localism in the form (the San Juan and Laurel streets, Ducal, Logroñes…), with the entire universe, particularly work and the working class, in the background.

«It was December 30, 1976. We still had to push hard on the “stake” that had not just fallen: for example, it was still obligatory to send the lyrics of the songs to the corresponding ministry for authorization (of course, they did not ask us musical scores), and the young people who organized the concerts took a gamble, and also… They could also call, and this is what happened, to the minstrels who came to the square, with their guitars and flutes, to review the papers, threaten them with the Haro prison and conclude that there, in San Asensio, “nothing had ever happened.” Many of the people who went (“just like me,” the song said), later provided me with other information that concluded with a more than significant figure. In San Asensio, where nothing ever happened, 34 residents were murdered between July and December 1936. So “The Ballad of San Asensio” simply tells what happened that afternoon, and musically it does so, precisely, in the form of ballad that repeats the melody, to which the different instruments join in strongly. “It was always one of our flagship songs.”

«For the recording of the second LP (Iregua, 1978), we recovered one of the songs that I had composed years ago based on texts by César Vallejo. It was on the occasion of a beautiful recital with which our group at that time, “Rebaño Feliz” wanted to publicize the work of the Peruvian poet. Which, by the way, had come to us from the hand and pen of our friends Mariano Casanova and Javier Pérez Escohotado.

«I worked very carefully on the re-composition of the song, with the help of Iñaki, and Carmen’s voice took care of everything else, as enormous and overwhelming before as now. “At the end of the battle and the combatant was dead, a man came to him and said: don’t die, I love you so much.” For me it has always been the hymn to the men of the earth, to all the men of the earth, to Humanity…”