In 1988, as violent protests against austerity measures imposed by the first president to be elected following seven years of rule by a military dictatorship wracked Argentina, Bruce Springsteen paid a visit to the South American country as part of Amnesty International's "Human Rights Now!" tour. Back in Argentina on Saturday night, where he and his E Street Band were playing in Buenos Aires, Springsteen spoke of the impact that early visit had had on him and told fans to check his website for video of his Spanish-language performance of the song "Solo le pido a Dios", which he said he first heard performed by folk singer Mercedes Sosa. Scroll down to watch the video.
"My memories of that time are still very much alive," he says in Spanish of the 1988 visit in the video. "We came to Argentina when the country was going through a difficult time, and fighting for its future. For a foreigner, Argentina was very much alive, promising. So it's a huge inspiration for me to return here, and I want to leave this song to the people of Argentina." The Latin American Herald reported that Leon Geico, the Argentine composer of the song, thanked Springsteen in a Twitter post for his "very warm" cover of the song.
The E Street Band is on tour in South America at the moment, with performances scheduled for Wednesday, September 18 in Sao Paolo, Brazil, and Saturday, September 21 in Rio de Janeiro. Before the band's stop in Buenos Aires, they played Santiago, where the Boss paid tribute to another South American star with a Spanish-language performance, this time of Chilean songwriter Victor Jara's "Manifesto". He told the Santiago crowd that "Chile was in our hearts" when he and the band visited Argentina in 1988. "We met many families of the disappeared," he said in reference to those victims of the Pinochet dictatorship who were detained by authorities and never heard from again. "They came with photographies of their beloved missing relatives. It was a moment that stay with me forever. If you are a political musician, Victor Jara is still a great inspiration." Jara was one of some 3,000 Chileans who were killed by the regime during the 17 years General Augusto Pinochet held power.
Springsteen has long been known as a chronicler of working-class blues, but in recent years his music's politics have gained sharper definition. The Associated Press noted that many of the lyrics on Springsteen's last album, "Wrecking Ball", could fit in quite comfortably beside those of a great deal of Latin American protest music. "The banker man grows fatter, the working man grows thin," he sang in "Jack of All Trades."
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