Lluís Llach: "It fucked us up that Serrat sang in Spanish and told us we were closed-minded"

BarcelonaLluís Llach was 27 years old when he was the protagonist of the first major political event in Catalonia after Franco's death: his legendary concerts on January 15, 16, and 17, 1976, at the Palau d'Esports in Barcelona. Half a century later, Llach – now 77 years old – is the second guest in the interview series 2 x 100: two people talking and 100 readers and subscribers of ARA, as the audience. In this conversation, we find a Lluís Llach who compares the January 1976 concerts with October 1, 2017, explains why he got angry with Serrat, and admits that perhaps he himself has already become grandfather Siset.

What do you remember about those recitals in January 1976?

— When people talk to me about what they consider the greatest concert of my life, which was at the Barça stadium, sometimes I don't say it to avoid disagreeing with them, but I always think that the one in January '76 was very special.

So, are those three concerts in January 1976 more important to you than the one at the Barça stadium in 1985?

— It was just that there was the illusion that the dictatorship was ending and the recovery of freedoms that we had heard about but had never had was coming. Then we saw that Franco's death was not the death of Francoism. There was a whole range of marvelous hopes that Spanish democracy itself has been dismantling.

What emotions did you have from the stage of the Palau d'Esports?

— Many, many. The truth is that day was very difficult because, besides, I was a spectator of something that had never been seen in this country. And they were, for example, the first esteladas, the first flags. The flags came in by compressing women's breasts or wrapped in prominent bellies. We always wonder who was the lady who wrapped herself in a 25-meter Catalan flag, which had a lot of prominence.

And on the first day were all the politicians, when parties did not yet exist, but also Salvador Espriu or Antoni Tàpies, Xirinacs, Raimon...

— It was, and perhaps that's why it had special significance, the public presentation of everything that was the antifascist movement, the Assemblea de Catalunya, the reorganization of parties... It was the first time it was shown in public.

The live album from those concerts, Barcelona, January 1976, is in many homes. My parents and my brother listened to it when I was ten years old and I was very impressed by those shouts of "Amnesty and freedom", those "Visca Catalunya", your gentle way of singing the lyrics... Perhaps it's the first moment I think: "Something is happening here".

— It was just very special. The most emotional moment, I think, was a song called Silencio, which had been forbidden and for the first time people started to sing it. I remember I choked up and had to be quiet. I look at Laura, my beloved guitarist, and she was crying her eyes out. It has nothing to do with it, but I've never heard such a strong empowerment of people until October 1st. The feeling that all of us, each one of us, had the power of the others, which is something very important: to feel like a people.

You always explain that your first political song was not La estaca, but Mi tierra. You sang: "Mi tierra nunca sabe cuándo ir atrás o salir adelante" (My land never knows when to go back or move forward). Linking with that, you said that in 1976 everything seemed possible, 50 years have passed,...

— We have gone back.

You can't say we've gone backwards since '76.

— Those of us who lived through that era had idealized the future so much that we thought a real democracy was possible and that we could be, even for Europe, an example of coexistence in a plurinational state. And this has not happened. The worst thing is that socialism is destroying this, which for me is an extraordinary disappointment. That Felipe González is the one destroying the project of a freer, more democratic, plurinational, confederal Spanish state, or what his program said when he was a militant, I suppose he was, come on, of "the freedom of the peoples of Spain"...

This February will mark 40 years since you denounced Felipe González for failing to comply with his electoral program. You were saying: you ran for election stating that Spain would leave NATO and you have not fulfilled it.

— And the best part is that the judge accepts it. We were facing a first-rate democratic fraud: we delegate our power in the vote, and then they lie to us and contradict themselves absolutely. The sentence was studied for years at the Sorbonne University. The judge divided the costs between us, something unheard of because it amounted to saying: you have a social reason, but I have searched Spanish legislation and comparative European law and there is no law that allows me to give you legal reason. But the insistence of acts like this, perhaps allows us to achieve that each social reason corresponds to a legal reason. And for that reason, he ordered him to pay half of the costs.

Have you ever had the chance to talk about it, with Felipe González, that?

— I have never spoken. I, when I want to vomit... It is that of all the politicians, and look, in Spain there is a good cast, I believe that theimposter, the most impressive swindler, is him.

Could someone report or have reported the separatist leaders of 2015 for breach of their electoral program? In the sense of: did he promise to take us out of Spain and he hasn't taken us out?

— Of course, they have already done it. Electrorally they have done it, huh? Furthermore, all the people who participated in it, I believe we have done a very strong self-criticism that has lasted a long time, despite prisons, exiles, convictions, etc., etc. One of the lessons learned after these years is that we must stop beating ourselves up. It's all well and good, but we won't get anywhere like this. One day we will have to forgive ourselves. We will have to say: I will never vote for you, for the other one I don't know what, but we cannot continue like this. We must continue hand in hand because we have no other way to win.

How would you define the emotional state of the country right now, or at least of that part of the country that wanted to be independent?

— I believe that he is still digesting the disappointment and at the same time, but I notice that as president of the ANC, it seems to me that we are at that moment when many people are starting to make the change. The change of saying: we cannot continue like this. We must rearm ourselves. We have made mistakes, of course. And many. And each one in their aspect, eh? Everyone has responsibility. Even the people. Why did we leave on October 3rd? We shouldn't have gone home when they told us to go home. Why did we believe? Why did we have too much confidence in politicians? Well, next time, when they say we're going home, we're not going. Do you understand? All of this is the advantage we have and, in a way, I hope that young people will give us a kick in the ass, all of us who are still here.

The last time I interviewed you was a long way from here: in 2014, in Senegal. You told me that you were there peacefully retired, that you wanted to have a quiet old age and that's why you had left music. The following year, head of the Junts pel Sí list in Girona. How you fooled me, huh!

— Completely, haha. Completely. It was Junqueras and Marta Rovira who told me, I wouldn't say to get tangled up, because I put my heart into it, but yes, yes... Many of us put our hearts into it and did what we could. But in 2007 I wanted to retire and I had planned my life to be writing, doing things I had never done. Observation, growing old. I find it a very difficult profession. I think it's a daily learning that makes you very rich, because accepting decrepitude and moving forward and understanding all of this is an exercise in wisdom.

Why now, to give me the headline, is Lluís Llach already grandfather Siset?

— Jahaha, I suppose so, because I keep telling the little stories that were told to me. What happens is that I do it here, on days like today, and Grandpa Siset was with a fishing rod by the Ter river, with beautiful trees. But yes, of course, and it's that Catalonia is full of elderly Siset. For 400 years there have been elderly Siset passing on the torch.

Listen, and with Serrat, what?

— With Serrat, what do you want me to tell you? Sexually, nothing.

No, because at home there were records of both, we liked both, and it seems like they have to make you choose. What happened?

— What happened is that the Sixteen Judges had a mandatory rule to be monolingual. And, besides, Serrat is a person who is very lovable. Let's say it hasn't been my case, but I know many people who love him very much. There were people who loved Setze Jutges very much. He, for whatever reasons, started singing in Spanish, something that upset us all a lot. What angered me the most were the explanations. That this way you would bring the Catalan problem to the world, that he had some reason, that they would see there is another language, that too, and that we were some recluses and all this, etcetera, etcetera. And I tried to contradict it by singing as best I could and going – now I have to be pedantic – to France, and going to Germany, and going to Switzerland, and going everywhere, to the best theaters. Music, song, has that secret, and it is that rationality exists in the lyrics and irrationality in the music. Music penetrates you with codes you cannot control. So, I think that precisely to defend a language and to popularize it, even in France or elsewhere, melody, music, is a magnificent tool to reach people and make them wonder what it says, right? And the fact that we sang in Catalan because we were provincial recluses, that angered me a lot. And we always argued about that.

And was it personally discussed?

— No, because we had it very clear, he and I. On the contrary, when we saw each other we were always kind. We met at [TV3] marathons and then he was sick and I remember we were talking about how he was doing, he was a bit damp. Personal relationships with people are easy. The problem is when we humans transport ourselves into humanity, and then there are interests, struggles, etc.

Can you imagine if we could have experienced a Serrat-Llach-Raimon concert together, the three of them? It would have been...

— Yes.

Not a Barça field, no; ten, he could have done it!

— Yes, it's true, but it's just that no... It's just that each one went... This is something else that perhaps we didn't know how to do. We didn't collaborate particularly, the singers. When the Sixteen Judges broke up, precisely because of this, each one went their own way with respect.

Luis, what awaits you around the next bend in the road?

— The truth is that I would like to achieve my dream of dying peacefully. What happens is that it is also very beautiful to kick the bucket while active and fighting for things. But I have the 2007 dream of living old age in fullness. Trying to die in serenity, in peace, with the assumption of your role as a human being, in a world where you are only a garment... Our civilization has forced us into a panic about death that is absurd and that I find totally coercive to our freedom of life.

I understand, from what you tell me, that this tranquil death is incompatible with presiding over the ANC.

— Presiding over the ANC is to die nervously. I assure you of that, I do. No, but I would like to write. Notice that it's making me talk about the past. I have never thought about the past. That's why, when they propose celebrations to me now, sometimes I wonder what they are for.

Well, for the people who have followed you.

— Yes, but if we give these people paper for tomorrow they will be happy. And what we should try to do is give them the spotlight for tomorrow and not put them in the corner of life.