Manifiesto [English translation]

I don't sing just to sing

niether because i have a good voice.

I sing because the guitar

makes sense and has a reason,

It has a heart made of earth

and wings of a little dove,

It's like holy water

it blesses glories and sadness

Here my singing got stucked

just like Violeta used to say,

a working guitar

with a spring smell.

A guitar that doesn't belong to the rich ones

nor anything like it.

My singing comes from the scaffoldings

used to reach the stars.

Because singing makes sense

when the veins palpitate

from whom will die singing

the truthful truth

not the brief flatterings

or the foreigner fames

but the singing of a lark instead

until the bottom of the earth.

There where everything arrives

and where everything begins

The song that has been brave

will always remains as 'canción nueva'*

*new song: movement in latin-american folk music in the '60s.

• Artist:Victor Jara
• Album:Manifiesto (1974)