Cicada Song: How a poetic song became Latin America’s protest anthem

In North America, this is the summer of the cicadas – the insects that can spend years underground before emerging en masse to sing.

The cacophony can be overwhelming – and is reminiscent of another summer of cicadas in South America, where a song about cicadas took its place as an iconic protest anthem, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary: ​​“Like the cigar,” or “Like the cicada.”

In February 1982, during the Argentine summer, singer Mercedes Sosa brought her country to tears. Three years earlier, she had been forced into exile by Argentina’s brutal military dictatorship (the horrors of the junta were retold in the 2022 Oscar-nominated Argentine film). Argentina, 1985).

But after returning to Buenos Aires, Sosa gave concerts in venues such as the Teatro Opera.

And they presented a ballad about endurance and transcendence, “Como la Cigarra,“ that it had become a poignant and powerful statement of defiance that resonated throughout Latin America and beyond.

“Sing the sun like a cigar“, said the poignant chorus: “I sing to the sun, like the cicada after a year underground. Like a survivor returning from war.”

After six years of the barbarism of the dictatorship known as the Dirty War – in which some 30,000 Argentines were murdered or disappeared – Sosa’s performances of “Like the cigar“” was a national catharsis. The song conjured up a painful darkness – but also a frightened people stepping back into the sunlight.

In fact, the dictatorship ended just one year later after the debacle of the Falklands War.

“It was like a voice of freedom,” says Argentine emigrant Sergio Gutierrez.

Gutierrez was a student at the University of Buenos Aires when Sosa gave those concerts in 1982. Today he is an international software manager living in Miami. But he still remembers how confident he felt when he heard “Like the cigar“in that Argentine summer – just as any Cuban might have felt when hearing the Latin Grammy-winning song”Fatherland and life“ in summer 2021.

“The military dictatorship was a hard time for many people,” Gutierrez told WLRN. “But this song seemed to be a beginning of hope. Like an anthem for the people.”

This protest anthem also encouraged Argentines who were still living in exile, such as anti-dictator Marta Alanís, who had sought refuge in countries such as France and Nicaragua after several of her friends and fellow activists were killed or disappeared.

Before leaving Argentina, “I lived secretly near a soccer field – where every morning we heard people being killed by firing squads,” said Alanís from Buenos Aires.

“I narrowly escaped this terror.”

READ MORE: “Patria y Vida,” nominated for a Latin Grammy, leads a protest music boom in Latin America

Today, Alanís is a leading feminist activist – a founder of the so-called Green Seaor the Green Wave movement, which helped legalize abortion in Argentina three years ago.

And she says: “Like the cigar“ is today a rousing hymn to human rights.

“The way we sang the song back then in Argentina is the same way we still sing it today,” says Alanís, referring to the following text:

“Many times you have married, many times you have found it again.

“‘No matter how many times they kill you, you will rise again just as many times.’ It’s timeless – it speaks across generations.”

Or as another particularly eloquent verse from “Like the cigar” sums it up:

“TMany times I lost myself, many times I disappeared / My whole self was alone and fell in love… but later I disappeared / That wasn’t the only time.

“So many times they’ve erased me, so many times I’ve disappeared… but it wasn’t the first time I went to my own funeral.”

And each verse ends with this message:

“And then I sing / sing in the sun like a cigar

“And I kept singing… just like the cicada.”

What makes this text doubly moving is “Like the Cigars” sweet and sad melody.

“Although the music addresses very deep and painful things,” says Alanís, “it does so in a tender, loving way.”

This alone is a reminder that “Like the cigar“ was not originally a protest or anti-dictatorship song.

In fact, the song was written in late 1973 – three years before the military junta took power in Argentina. And it was written by an Argentinian artist who is best known for her books and songs for children: María Elena Walsh, who died in 2011.

“She is particularly dear to my heart,” says Carlos Anino, an Argentine entrepreneur who emigrated to Weston, “because I grew up listening to her children’s songs as a boy.”

Maria Elena Walsh Foundation

Anino points out that Walsh’s “Like the cigar“” was not a children’s song in the true sense of the word; it radiates a non-political innocence. And that is precisely why, he believes, it was an even more effective ballad against the dictatorship in the years that followed.

“It wasn’t a pamphlet that forced an agenda on you,” says Anino.

“It was the metaphorical art that created a more collective, non-partisan feeling among Argentines” when the dictatorship was established. “It was truly prophetic.”

One of South Florida’s most popular Argentine singers, Mariana Quinteros of Biscayne Park, says it reflects an artful tradition in Argentine music: the use of poetic imagery to disguise a political meaning.

“Anyone who has problems in life can identify with the song,” says Quinteros.

“But Argentina has always been very political – and beneath the surface of the artists’ expressions lies, let’s say, protest.”

Perfect match

Quinteros, a Grammy-nominated tango singer whose new album is titled Counterpointsays Sosa, a folk singer who died in 2009, was the one who looked beneath the surface of “Like the cigar.”

“Poetry,” says Quinteros, who counts “Like the cigar“One of her favorite ballads that she performed fit perfectly with what Sosa wanted to say against the dictatorship.”

And Sosa’s 1978 recording of “Como la Cigarra” turned out to be the perfect reflection of what most Argentines wanted to say to the dictatorship.

This was particularly true of the movement “Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo” – the mothers of the thousands of people who were murdered or disappeared by the military regime.

One of the heroines of this movement was Nora Cortiñas, who was one of the pioneers of democracy in Argentina until her death two months ago.

Cortiñas’ eldest son Gustavo disappeared in 1977 during the dictatorship – and she never found him again before she died at the age of 94. Shortly before her death, Cortiñas publicly sang the song that helped her in her almost half-century-long search: “Like the cigar.”

As long as she could sing like the defiant cicadas, Cortiñas said, she never gave up hope.

Here are the lyrics (and the English translation) of “Como la Cigarra”:

Thank you, Mataron, thank you, Mataron, thank you, Mataron
Without embargo, I’m here, back
Thank you for giving me the hand with the mouth
Because I’m in such a bad mood
And the following song

Sing in the sun like a cigar
Under the ground for a year
Just like survival
What will become of the war

Many times I have hurt myself, many times I have disappeared
And my property is all alone and rests
There is a naked man on the floor, but after that I’m gone
That was not the only time
And the following song

Sing in the sun like a cigar
Under the ground for a year
Just like survival
What will become of the war

So many times you will die, so many times you will die
How many nights passed when I did not experience it
And in times of water shortage and darkness
Someone is saved
For the singing

Sing in the sun like a cigar
Under the ground for a year
Just like survival
What will become of the war

So many times they killed me, so many times I died
But I am here and I will get up again
I thank the misery and the hand with the dagger
It killed me badly
But I keep singing

Sing to the sun like the cicada
After a year underground
Like a survivor
Return from the war

So many times they have erased me, so many times I have disappeared
I went to my own funeral alone and crying
I tied a knot in my handkerchief, but I forgot
That it was not the only time
And I continued singing

Sing to the sun like the cicada
After a year underground
Like a survivor
Return from the war

No matter how many times they kill, you will be resurrected just as often
No matter how many desperate nights you spend
At the moment you are sinking in the dark
Someone will save you
Keep singing

Sing to the sun like the cicada
After a year underground
Like a survivor
Return from the war