In Vilanova de Arousa (Pontevedra) on October 28, 1866, not a star was born, but a whole literary constellation that was to be called Ramón María del Valle-Inclán. A hurricane, an erupting volcano, a tidal wave that would shake the literary world, and illuminate it with a brilliance unprecedented until that date. A bohemian light that in a lyrical key would go from the marquisate of Bradomín to a tyrant, a barbaric comedy with a silver face emblazoned in a romance of wolves disguised as Shrove Tuesday, a car of silhouettes that was portrayed in an altarpiece of greed, lust and death. Divine words that followed the Carlist war in the Iberian arena, that court of miracles that can only be glimpsed if one is loaded with his kif pipe. Hallelujah!
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán envisioned a way of doing theater so revolutionary that it would take years for the theaters to know how to face their performances. The grotesque as an outstanding figure, a way of recognizing the world (Spain) reflected in the mirrors of the Callejón del Gato, where to look for the comic side in the tragedy of life. Now that I think about it, what a way to be current. Certainly, the way of being of a genius: the perennial present time, accompanying us throughout our existence, telling us through his work what we need to hear at every moment or, in the case of Valle-Inclán, opening ourselves to chasms that delve into the most deeply human facets no matter how hard they are.
“La pipa de kif” (Kif’s pipe) was published in 1919, and while maintaining a close relationship with the aesthetics of Modernism (we can also visit Panorama of Modernism), you can already see in its verses an air of esperpento and nonsense, and it portrays a world of thugs and subjugated women, thugs and pimps, murderers, executioners … A strong aroma of marijuana outlines the words and the provoked images. That same feeling was what led us to give that psychedelic rock impression to our version of the poem “Hallelujah”, shortened for the song, even though we found a formula to add more verses towards the end. This is how we told Don Ramón María when we visited him at his bank on Paseo de la Alameda in Santiago de Compostela. To find out what we did, it is best not to resist the temptation and click on the button to listen to the song.
- ALELUYA Fran Amil 4:40
ALELUYA
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
Por la divina primavera
Me ha venido la ventolera
De hacer versos funambulescos—
Un purista diría grotescos—.
Para las gentes respetables
Son cabriolas espantables.
¡Sombra del misterioso delta,
Vibra en tu honor mi gaita celta!
¡Tú amabas las rosas, el vino
Y los amores del camino!
Cantor de Vida y Esperanza,
Para ti toda mi loanza.
Por el alba de oro, que es tuya, Aleluya.
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
Hay que crear eternamente
Y dar al viento la simiente:
El grano de amor o veneno
Que aposentamos en el seno.
El grano de todas las horas
En el gran Misterio sonoras.
¿Y cuál será mi grano incierto?
¡Tendré su pan después de muerto!
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya! ¡Aleluya!
RECITADO:
Pálida flor de la locura con normas de literatura
Acaso esta musa grotesca, ya no digo funambulesca,
que con sus gritos espasmódicos irrita a los viejos retóricos
y salta luciendo la pierna no será la musa moderna.
Apuro el vaso de bon vino y hago cantando mi camino
y a compás de un ritmo trocáico de viejo gaitero galaico
llevo mi verso a la farándula: Anímula, Vágula, Blándula.
ALELUYA
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
By the divine spring
The wind has come to me
Of making tightrope verses—
A purist would say grotesque.
For respectable people
They are frightful pranks.
Shadow of the mysterious delta,
My Celtic bagpipe vibrates in your honor!
You loved the roses, the wine
And the loves of the road!
Singer of Life and Hope,
For you all my praise.
For the golden dawn, which is yours, Hallelujah.
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
You have to create eternally
And give the seed to the wind:
The grain of love or poison
That we lodge in the bosom.
The grain of all hours
In the great Mystery sonorous.
And what will my uncertain grain be?
I’ll have your bread after I’m dead!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
RECITATION:
Pale flower of madness with norms of literature
Perhaps this grotesque muse, already in the word tightrope walker,
qthat with her spasmodic screams irritates the old rhetoricians
and he jumps showing off his leg in which he will be the modern muse.
I rush the glass of good wine and sing my way
and to the beat of a trochaic rhythm of an old Galician piper
I bring my verse to show business: Anímula, Vágula, Blándula.
Carlos and I have come to the birthplace of Don Ramón María, in Vilanova de Arousa. Today the house is converted into the Valle Inclán House Museum, and there they treated us with great kindness despite appearing suddenly and without warning. We wanted to sing “Aleluya” next to the effigy valle inclanesca, and we shot with the iPhone recording image and sound, without further technical support, so we apologize if it sounds a bit reverberated. We were lucky that they had just set up the table where Inclán often wrote. Enjoy the song.
To listen to it, click on the title of the photo.
If you want to see more anniversaries related to the lyrical authors of the album “Popsia Vol. I” click HERE.