Poetry, music and identity (with English subtitles) | Jorge Drexler | TED

1,488,055 views ・ 2017-05-10

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

00:13
I'm going to tell you the story of a song.
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I was in Madrid one night in 2002
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with my teacher and friend Joaquín Sabina,
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when he said he had something to give me.
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He said,
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"Jorge, I have some lines that you need to put into a song.
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Take these down, take these down."
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I looked on the table but all I found was a circular coaster,
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on which I wrote the lines my teacher dictated.
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They were four lines that went like this:
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"I am a Jewish Moor living among Christians
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are."
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Those lines really made an impression on me.
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I said, "What beautiful lyrics, Joaquín. Did you write them?"
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He said no, they were by another composer named Chicho Sánchez Ferlosio,
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who was less known than Joaquín, but also a great poet.
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These lines came to me at a time
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where I had been wanting to express something for a while,
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but didn't quite know how.
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I was getting up to leave and go home to write,
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when Joaquín stopped me and said, "Hang on, hang on,"
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and presented me with this challenge:
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"Write the stanzas for this song
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in Décimas."
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Now, at this point in my life,
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I still wasn't completely sure what Décimas were,
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but I was too embarrassed to tell my teacher I didn't know.
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So I put on my best "Yeah, I totally understand" face,
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and went home to look up what Décimas were.
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I learned that a Décima is a type of verse
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that only exists in Spanish,
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and that it has 10 lines.
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It's very, very complex --
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perhaps the most complex style of stanza that we have in Spanish.
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It also has a very concrete date of origin,
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which is very rare for a style of stanza.
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The Décima was invented in Spain in 1591,
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by a guy named Vicente Espinel, a musician and poet from Málaga.
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And listen to this coincidence: he was the same guy
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who added the sixth string
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to what would later be called the Spanish guitar.
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This string right here --
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it's called the "bordona."
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From Spain, the Décima, with its 10 lines,
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crosses over to America, just like the Spanish guitar,
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but in contrast to the Décima,
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the Spanish guitar continues to live today
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on both sides of the Atlantic.
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But the Décima, in Spain, its birthplace,
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disappeared; it died out.
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It died out about 200 years ago,
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and yet in Latin America, from Mexico to Chile,
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all our countries maintain some form of the Décima
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in our popular traditions.
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In each place, they've given it a different name,
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and set it to different music.
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It has a lot of different names -- more than 20 in total on the continent.
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In Mexico, for example, it's called the "Son Jarocho,"
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"Canto de mejorana" in Panama;
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"Galerón" in Venezuela;
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"Payada" in Uruguay and Argentina;
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"Repentismo" in Cuba.
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In Peru, they call it the Peruvian Décima,
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because the Décima becomes so integrated into our traditions,
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that if someone asks, people from each place are completely convinced
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that the Décima was invented in their country.
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(Laughter)
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It's also got a really surprising feature,
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which is that despite the fact that it developed independently
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in each of the different countries,
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it maintains even today, 400 years after its creation,
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exactly the same rhyme, syllable and line structure --
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the same structure Vicente Espinel gave it during the Spanish Baroque period.
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Here's the structure --
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I'll give you the basic idea and then later you can look online
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and learn more about it.
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The Décima is ten lines long; each line has eight syllables.
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The first line rhymes with the fourth and the fifth;
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the second line, with the third;
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the sixth line, with the seventh and the tenth;
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and the eighth line rhymes with the ninth.
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It's a bit complicated, to be honest.
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And me -- imagine me, trying to write in Décimas.
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But it's not as complicated as it seems.
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Plus, it's amazing that it's survived with the same structure
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for more than four centuries.
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It's not that complicated, because it has an impressive musicality to it,
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a type of musicality
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that's very hard to describe technically.
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I prefer that you listen to it.
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So I'm going to recite a Décima,
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one of the Décimas that I wrote for this song.
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I'm going to ask that you concentrate just on the musicality of the rhymes.
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For those of you with headphones on --
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I see that some of you are listening to the translation --
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please take them off for a minute.
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(English) Take your headphones off, it you have them.
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(English) Forget about the meaning of the words for a few seconds,
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(English) and then you'll put them back.
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(English) Forget about the structure.
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(Spanish) Forget about the structure.
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(English) And just ... it's all about the choreography of sound of the Décima.
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(Spanish) A choreography of sound.
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(Sings in Spanish) "There is not one death that does not cause me pain,
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there are no winners,
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here’s nothing but suffering and another life blown away.
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War is a terrible school no matter what the disguise,
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forgive me for not enlisting under any flag,
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any daydream is worth more than a sad piece of cloth."
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That's a Décima.
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(English) You can put your headphones back on.
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(Applause)
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(English) Thank you.
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(Applause)
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I also applaud Vicente Espinel, because here it is 426 years later,
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and the Décima lives on everywhere
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in its original state.
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I wrote three like that one; you just heard the second.
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I wrote the first one having only recently learned how,
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and it has some errors in terms of meter,
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so it's not presentable in its current state.
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But the one I sang was good, more or less.
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So: What was it about?
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What was the meaning behind those lines?
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I had just returned from doing a concert in Israel,
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and I was very emotional over a problem that hits really close to home,
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which is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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I'll explain: my dad's family is Jewish,
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and my mom's family are non-practicing Christians.
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I was raised in a home where the two traditions lived together
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more or less in harmony.
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It wasn't unusual to see my Jewish grandpa dressed as Santa Claus, for example,
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or to see my non-Jewish grandpa at the synagogue wearing his kippah,
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at family celebrations, wearing the same expression that I probably had
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when Sabina told me --
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(Laughter)
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that he had some Décima lines for me.
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For someone raised in that kind of environment,
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it's especially painful to see the difficulty the opposing parties have
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in putting themselves in the other side's shoes even for a moment.
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So that's what I wrote about.
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I already had the lyrics,
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I had the form -- the Décima -- and the content.
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I needed to write the music.
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I'll give you some context.
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I had only recently moved from Uruguay, where I'm from, to Spain.
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And I was feeling very raw with nostalgia,
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like many of you here, who are away from home.
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And I wanted my song to be very, very Uruguayan,
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the most Uruguayan type of song there is -- the milonga.
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So now, I had been studying the Décima, and after finding out
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that everyone tried to claim the Décima as their own,
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that it was invented in their country,
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it made me wonder:
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What does it mean when we say the milonga is Uruguayan?
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The milonga has a rhythmic pattern that we musicians call 3-3-2.
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(Counts out the beats) One two three, one two three, one two.
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And it has a characteristic emphasis.
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(Sings)
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But this characteristic rhythm pattern
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comes from Africa.
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In the ninth century you could find it in the brothels of Persia,
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and in the thirteenth,
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in Spain, from where, five centuries later,
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it would cross over to America with the African slaves.
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Meanwhile, in the Balkans, it encounters the Roma scale --
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(Sings)
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which in part, gives birth to klezmer music,
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which Ukrainian Jewish immigrants bring to Brooklyn, New York.
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They sing it in their banquet halls.
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(Sings "Hava Nagila")
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And their neighbor, an Argentine kid of Italian origin
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named Astor Piazzolla,
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hears it,
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assimilates it
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and transforms the tango of the second half of the 20th century
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with his ...
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(Counts out the beats) One two three, one two three, one two.
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(Sings "Adios Nonino")
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He also played it on his bandoneon, a 19th-century German instrument
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created for churches that couldn't afford to buy organs,
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and that ends up, incredibly, in Río de la Plata,
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forming the very essence of the tango and the milonga,
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in the very same way another instrument just as important as the bandoneon did:
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the Spanish guitar.
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(Applause)
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To which, by the way, Vicente Espinel, in the 16th century,
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added a sixth string.
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It's amazing how all these things are coming full circle.
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What have I learned in these 15 years since the song was born
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from going all over the world with four lines written on a coaster
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from a bar in Madrid?
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That Décimas,
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the milonga,
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songs, people --
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the closer you get to them,
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the more complex their identity becomes,
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and the more nuances and details appear.
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I learned that identity is infinitely dense,
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like an infinite series of real numbers,
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and that even if you get very close
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and zoom in,
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it never ends.
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Before I sing you a song and say goodbye,
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allow me to tell you one last story.
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Not long ago, we were in Mexico after a concert.
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And since the concert promoters know me,
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they knew I was a Décima freak and that everywhere I go I ask about it,
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insisting on hearing Décima artists.
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So they organized a son jarocho show for me at their house.
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If you recall, the son jarocho is one of the styles of music
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that uses Décimas in its verses.
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When these amazing musicians finished playing
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what is for me, something amazing, which is the son jarocho,
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they finished playing and were ...
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I went up to greet them, really excited,
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getting ready to thank them for their gift of music,
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and this young kid says to me --
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and he says it with the best of intentions -- he says,
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"We're very proud, sir, to be keeping alive the purest origins
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of our Mexican identity."
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And to tell you the truth, I didn't really know what to say.
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(Laughter)
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I stood there looking at him. I gave him a hug and left, but ...
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(Laughter)
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But he was right, too, though. Right?
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In reality, the Décima is its origin, but at the same time,
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just like in the milonga and in the Décima,
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are the roots of many more cultures from all over the place, like he said.
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Later, when I got back to the hotel, I thought about it for a while.
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And I thought:
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things only look pure
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if you look at them from far away.
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It's very important to know about our roots,
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to know where we come from, to understand our history.
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But at the same time, as important as knowing where we're from,
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is understanding that deep down,
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we're not completely from one place,
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and a little from everywhere.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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This is "The milonga of the Jewish Moor."
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(Music)
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(Sings)
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For every wall a lament in Jerusalem the golden
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and 1000 wasted lives for every commandment.
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I am dust in your wind and although I bleed through your wound,
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and every beloved stone has my deepest affection,
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there is not a stone in the world worth more than a human life.
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I am a Jewish Moor who lives among Christians
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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There is not one death that does not cause me pain, there are no winners
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there's nothing but suffering and another life blown away.
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War is a terrible school no matter what the disguise,
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forgive me for not enlisting under any flag,
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any daydream is worth more than a sad piece of cloth.
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I am a Jewish Moor who lives among Christians
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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And nobody has my permission for killing in my name,
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a man is but a man and if there is a God, this was his wish,
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the very ground I tread will live on, once I am gone
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on my way to oblivion, and all doctrines will suffer the same fate,
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and there is not one nation that has not proclaimed itself
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the chosen people.
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I am a Jewish Moor who lives among Christians
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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I don't know who my God is, nor who my brothers are.
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I am a Jewish Moor who lives among Christians
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(Applause)
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Thank you.
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(Applause)
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