Karel Kryl - Dvacet (Twenty)

The holidays are coming to an end and I hope that you've had a nice vacation. This week marked the 49th anniversary of the invasion of the armies of the Warsaw pact in Czechoslovakia, so I think it would be appropriate to once again look at the brilliant work of Karel Kryl.

I chose his song Jeřabiny (Rowanberries) for my very first blogpost, because I simply cannot get enough of Kryl's masterful poetry. Today's song will be a little more complex, so that you can get the gist of why he's praised not only by casual listeners, but also by literature scholars. Dvacet may not be among his most well-known songs, but it is definitely one of my favourites. Kryl wrote it for the 20th anniversary of the invasion, in exile. In his later songs, Kryl tends to play with words and implement very subtle barbs at the Czechoslovak regime. He also criticized the people for not taking action and being compliant with the regime. However, at the same time, he was trying to inspire them to do something, and to give them hope.

Karel Kryl - Jeřabiny (Rowanberries)

Alright, so I've decided to kick this site off with a post about my absolute favourite singer-songwriter of all time. Karel Kryl's (1944-1994) speciality were protest songs - "he identified and attacked the stupidity and inhumanity of the Communist and later also post-communist regimes in his home country," reads the introduction of his Wikipedia entry, and continues:

"The lyrics of Karel Kryl's songs are highly poetic and sophisticated, with a frequent use of metaphors and historical allusions. The sparse sounds of an accompanying acoustic guitar served to underscore the natural flow of the lyrics themselves. In certain respects—especially the complexity of his lyrics and his accompaniment by a single acoustic guitar—Kryl was similar to a young Bob Dylan. However, unlike Dylan, the Czech singer had a smooth and pure voice, which gave a hauntingly sad quality to his mournful lyrics. He was bitterly critical of the new regime established after the collapse of communism in his country, including of Václav Havel, and those who were responsible for the destruction of Czechoslovakia in 1992."

Jeřabiny (Rowanberries) is one of Kryl's most famous songs, and also one of the earliest. It was first published on his debut album, Bratříčku, zavírej vrátka (Close the Gate, Little Brother), in 1969 - shortly after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The album's cover was originally supposed to be Josef Koudelka's photo of two dead bodies in a passageway, covered by the Czechoslovak flag from August 1968, but the publishers feared that it would get banned by the censors. Another Koudelka's photo was then chosen instead - again, from August 1968 - of a boy sitting on a street in Prague, with a bullseye drawn on his back.