Pongo en tus manos abiertas

Pongo en tus manos abiertas
Studio album by Víctor Jara
Released June, 1969
Recorded Santiago, Chile 1969
Genre Folk music
Protest music
Nueva canción
Length 41:23
Label DICAP
Warner Bros. Records
Producer Víctor Jara
Víctor Jara chronology
Victor Jara
(1967)		 Pongo en tus manos abiertas
(1969)		 Canto libre
(1970)

Pongo en tus manos abiertas ("I Put Into Your Open Hands") is an album recorded by Víctor Jara with the musicians from Quilapayún in June, 1969. It was the third album released by the DICAP record label.[1]

Content

Luis Emilio Recabarren

The name given to the album is the opening line to Jara's homage to the founder of the Chilean labour movement and Communist Party of Chile, Luis Emilio Recabarren:

Pongo en tus manosInto your open
abiertashands
mi guitarra de cantor,I place my singers guitar
martillo de los mineros,the hammer of the miners
arado del Labrador. the peasant’s plough.

Che and Camilo Torres

The album includes recordings of songs written by Jara and songs that Jara interprets of other Latin American Nueva Canción (New Song) singer-songwriters, such as the Uruguayan Daniel Viglietti and the Argentine Atahualpa Yupanqui that were highly influential to artists of the Nueva Canción Chilena (New Chilean Song) movement.

There is a song in tribute to Che Guevara and a song about the revolutionary Colombian priest and one of the first martyrs of the Liberation theology movement, Camilo Torres.

Preguntas por Puerto Montt

This albums also contains a song written by Jara commenting on a massacre that occurred in the city of Puerto Montt in Chile in 1969. In it, Jara condemns the then Christian Democrat Minister of the Interior Edmundo Pérez Zujovic for the death of 11 men, women, and children during the massacre of Puerto Montt.

In the early morning of March the 9th, 1969 the wealthy businessman and Interior Minister, Pérez Zujovic, authorized 250 armed police to attack and open fire on 91 homeless peasant families who were occupying private wastelands in the remote part of Puerto Montt. Tear gas grenades, dogs and machine gun fire were used to terrorize and evict the impoverished peasant squatters. Many of the peasants suffered shot wounds, many were killed, including a 9-month-old child.[2]

Usted debe responder "You will have to answer
señor Pérez Zujovic Mr Pérez Zujovic
porqué al pueblo indefenso, why were defenseless people
contestaron con fusil. replied to with guns.
Señor Pérez su conciencia "Mr Pérez your conscience
la enterró en un ataúd is now buried in a coffin
y no limpiarán sus manos and all the southern rains
toda la lluvia del sur. won't clean your hands.

Te Recuerdo Amanda

The album contained one of Víctor Jara most famous and beautiful songs, "Te recuerdo Amanda" ("I remember you Amanda"), which has been adapted to various languages and interpreted by various artists from all over the world such as Joan Baez, Robert Wyatt, Raimon and Cornelis Vreeswijk.

Liner notes

Luis Emilio Recabarren: (1876-1924) the founder of the Chilean labor movement and the Communist Party of Chile in 1922. Recabarren dedicate his life to the political organization of the working class and he was the first to emphasize the important role that cultural activity and the arts could play in the development and emancipation of working-class people. Though Recabarren was not primarily an artist his conception of art and politics profoundly influenced progressive and popular artists and culture in Chile.

I PUT IN YOUR OPEN HANDS…
Laughter and blows,
Hope and protest.
A shout emerges crossing the large expanse of our territory.
It is the peasant nailing a plough on the land,
the worker filling the air with protest on May Day,
the student and his word
in street battles,
the youth,
that for being young,
cannot but look forward into the future.

And all this is present
in the youth that struggles
and in the song of protest.

The new song of Victor Jara unites,
from his position as activist of the people’s cause,
the spirit of the young generation of our land,
the lengthy tradition of the workers struggles
the awaken conscious of the artist
which is identified more than compromised with the people.

During these days in which the Communist Youth
gather for their VI Congress
to reassert their decision to receive the message
which places in their “OPEN HANDS”
the visionary father of the New Homeland,
Luis Emilio Recabarren.

We also place in the open hands
of all the Chilean youth
These songs that speak to us
about our convictions,
our hopes
of ourselves.

—Santiago, June 1969 [3]

Track listing

  1. "A Luis Emilio Recabarren" (To Luis Emilio Recabarren) (Víctor Jara) 2:49
  2. "A desalambrar" (Tear down the fences) (Daniel Viglietti) 1:36
  3. "Duerme, duerme, negrito" (Sleep little black child) (Traditional, Adapt: Atahualpa Yupanqui) 2:49
  4. "Juan sin Tierra" (Landless Juan) (Jorge Saldaña) 3:09f
  5. "Preguntas por Puerto Montt" (Questions about Puerto Montt) (Víctor Jara) 2:39
  6. "Móvil Oil Special"[4] (Víctor Jara) 2:46
  7. "Cruz de Luz, Camilo Torres" (Cross of Light, Camilo Torres) (Daniel Viglietti) 3:04
  8. "El martillo" (If I had a hammer) (Lee Hays/Pete Seeger – Adapt: Víctor Jara)
  9. "Te recuerdo Amanda" (I remember you Amanda) (Víctor Jara) 2:33
  10. "Zamba del Che" (Zamba song for "Che") (Rubén Ortiz Fernández) 3:39
  11. "Ya parte el galgo terrible" (The ferocious greyhounds attack) (Pablo Neruda – Sergio Ortega) 1:50
  12. "A Cochabamba me voy" (I am going to Cochabamba) (Víctor Jara) 2:26

Extended 2001 Reissue

The reissue of Pongo en tus manos abiertas historic recording by Warner in March 2001 was extended with 6 bonus tracks:

References and other sources

Jara, Joan. (1983). Victor: An Unfinished Song. Jonathan Cape Ltd. ISBN 0-224-01880-9

  1. ↑ Discoteca del Cantar Popular (Record Label of Popular Song) was a record label established by the Communist youth that would issue music albums that commercial record company’s were not prepared to release in Chile at the time.
  2. ↑ Jara, Joan (1983), pp.124-125
  3. ↑ Liner notes that appeared on the original DICAP Pongo en tus manos abiertas release in June, 1969.
  4. ↑ Riot squads used by the state to clamp-down on student rallies and unrest. They were introduced by Edmundo Pérez Zujovic; the song title plays on the close ties multi-nationals have with the repressive apparatus of the state.
  5. ↑ A rare theatrical work written by Pablo Neruda in 1967; put to music by the Chilean pianist and composer Sergio Ortega.
  6. ↑ Established by Ángel Parra after his return from Paris in the mid-1960s, initially the idea was to recreate the ‘boîtes de nuit’ ambiance of Paris where he had performed with his family. Some have called these "Peñas" cultural centers the ‘crucible’ where neo-folklore transformed itself into the New Chilean Song movement.
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