Cover Me: Manifesto

On September 12, 2013, Bruce Springsteen took the stage for his first-ever show in Chile.

By all accounts, it was a joyous and raucous (if standard) main set, but when Bruce  transitioned to the encores, it was clear he understood the significance of the date.

Reading from a carefully prepared script in Spanish, Bruce recalled the last time he was in the neighborhood, on the Human Rights Now! Tour in 1988.

Here’s the English translation of Bruce’s words:

In 1988, we played for Amnesty International in Mendoza, Argentina, but Chile was in our hearts. We met many families of The Disappeared, who had pictures of their loved ones. It was a moment that stays with me forever. If you are a political musician, Víctor Jara remains a great inspiration. It’s an honor to be here, and I accept it humbly.

The Desperarecidos –The Disappeared–who Bruce spoke of numbered in the hundreds of thousands. They were ordinary citizens who were arrested, tortured, and killed during the Chilean dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet.

Pinochet came to power on September 11, 1973, when he and the Chilean military (backed and funded by the Nixon administration in the United States) overthrew Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile since 1970.

Allende was an avowed socialist, and under his leadership Chile had moved swiftly and steadily leftward, nationalizing healthcare, creating jobs through infrastructure investments, integrating schools through scholarships, building low-income housing, and more.

Allende’s government also recognized the importance of the arts, infusing them into national curriculum standards and sponsoring national music festivals. It was only natural that the artists and musicians of Chile’s progressive Nueva Canción (New Song) movement aligned themselves with the Allende administration, providing their outspoken support and receiving endorsements and funding from the state government.

One of the most prominent folk singers on the New Song scene was Victor Jara, a teacher, poet, director, songwriter, and communist activist. He wrote songs about the common people, championed social justice, and was renowned not only for his songwriting talent but also for his incredible charisma and presence as a live performer and guitarist.

Jara was immensely popular not just in Chile but in other countries as well, even in the American folk music scene. An early supporter of Allende, Jara played free concerts, volunteered as an organizer, and wrote the theme song for Allende’s 1970 presidential campaign, Venceremos.

Not all Chileans looked favorably on the Allende administration, however. Over the course of Allende’s three years in office, racial tensions increased between wealthy white citizens and the poor indigenous descendants, inflation rose and wages dropped, and a strong resistance formed in the national congress. With secret support for the resistance from the U.S. government, conditions for a coup ripened.

The very last song Jara wrote before the coup was “Manifesto,” released only posthumously.

“Manifesto” is a song about what it means to be a politically outspoken musician. Jara’s lyrics, translated below, have resonated with artists ever since.

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 labor
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

There, where everything comes to rest 
and where everything begins
the song which has been brave 
will be forever new

As such a high-profile supporter of Allende, Jara was one of the first to be rounded up by Pinochet’s military–the very next day, in fact.

Jara was imprisoned along with thousands of his countrymen at the National Stadium in Santiago, which Pinochet used as a detention and execution center–the largest but not the only such center in Chile. Over a thousand other detention centers spanned the country, where dissidents were imprisoned, interrogated, tortured, raped, and in many cases ultimately killed and dumped in the streets in full public view as a warning.

Inside the stadium, the hungry and dehydrated political prisoners were terrified. Jara made it his personal mission to calm them and bolster their spirits through song. On his fourth day of captivity, a guard recognized Jara. In a stroke of brutal cruelty, the guard had Jara dragged to a table, where his arms were stretched out in full public view.

The guard lifted an axe, and in two strokes, he chopped off the fingers from both of Jara’s hands, ensuring that he would never play guitar again.

“Now sing,” the guard taunted, as he beat and pummeled Jara mercilessly. “Now sing.”

Jara accepted the dare. He staggered to his feet, raised his bloody hands in the air, and sang the Allende theme song he’d written, Venceremos.

Jara was immediately shot dead, his body riddled with more than forty bullets. He wouldn’t receive a proper burial until 2009; his murderers were finally tried and convicted in 2018.

The Pinochet government finally fell in 1990, and in 2004 the National Stadium where Jara was executed was renamed in his honor.

In the many years since his death, countless artists have paid tribute to Jara and his legacy.

On September 12, 2013, it was Bruce’s turn. Forty years to the day of Jara’s capture and detainment, Bruce introduced his encores with a moving rendition of Jara’s “Manifesto,” performed only with Nils and Curt Ramm as accompaniment.

The crowd roared in recognition and appreciation and then listened raptly and respectfully while Bruce, Nils, and Curt kept Jara’s legacy alive.

When they finished, Bruce went directly into “We Are Alive.”

He couldn’t have picked a more perfect segue.

Manifesto
First performed: September 12, 2013 (Santiago, Chile)
Last performed: September 12, 2013 (Santiago, Chile)