Waldemar Matuška - Krysař (The Rat-Catcher)

 

I haven't posted here for a while (a long while), mostly because I've been either busy at work or had family issues. Apologies for that, and if you let me know that you like this blog, I will continue. I just didn't feel the need when I didn't have any followers.

However, in the current situation, a post like this might be relevant to at least a few people. 

There are plenty of Czech songs that reflect on the invasion of 1968, and I picked this one because I believe it reflects perfectly on current events as well. History repeats itself, unfortunately.

That being said, our Ukrainian brothers are putting up a fight that we were not capable of, they are the true heroes. The men who put their lives at risk at the front, the women who are strong enough to leave their husbands behind and take a step into the unknown, moving their children to a foreign country, often without any contact there, and everybody else who are just trying to survive in what looks like an apocalypse.

Sláva Ukrajině!

The song is a cover of Hugues Aufray's Le joueur de pipeau (The Pied Piper), Czech text was written by Ivo Fischer. It was recorded just a year before the invasion of the Warsaw Pact (mostly Soviet) armies in 1968, and it is harrowing in retrospect. And in present times, alas.

Waldemar Matuška - Slavíci z Madridu (Nightingales from Madrid)

We can say without exaggeration that Waldemar Matuška was one of the most popular Czech singers of all time. With his fiery gaze, impassionate bass-baritone, but also a great sense of humour, he soon became the heart-throb of many a young woman in the 1960's and 1970's. People would often joke that young women could be divided into two groups: Karel Gott's fangirls, and Waldemar Matuška's fangirls (I myself proudly identify as the latter!☺)

An only son of a Vienna operetta singer, Matuška first got training as a glassmith, but his passion for music soon lead him to the theatre Semafor - a powerhouse of new talent in the 1960's - and soon became a huge star. Later, he started acting in films, his songs would be featured as title songs of many TV series. However, after he didn't return from the USA in 1986, all his work got blacklisted. His voice was erased from titular TV show songs, his latest record was destroyed, and his name was deleted from end credits. Films that he'd appeared in were forbidden. The 1990's meant a reneissance of his old songs, but even though he would hold many concerts in his homeland, he never returned from America to live here.

A popular practice in the 1950's, 60's and 70's was translating songs from the West. The originals often could not be played here at all, and people wouldn't understand them anyway. Sometimes, it happened so that the translation was somehow even better than the original - often completely changing the topic of the song. Especially popular were French songs, and that is the case of Slavíci z Madridu. Originally written as Rossignol Anglais by Hugues Auffray, it was used (similarly to Modlitba pro Martu) for the TV musical series Píseň pro Rudolfa III. (A Song for Rudolf III), from which is the video below.

Petr Novák - Já budu chodit po špičkách (I'll Walk on Tiptoes)

Let us go back to the sixties for a bit. This song was so popular in 1965 that rules of the radio hit parade Houpačka (Swing) had to be changed, because Já budu chodit po špičkách remained number one for a year and a half! It remains popular to this day, and it appears in film soundtracks and is regularly played on the radio.

Petr Novák's life story strikes as one of the rather tragic ones in the history of pop music. In his late teens, he was a big fan of the Beatles, and he and his two friends founded a band. They called themselves simply - "Beatles". Of course, before they made their first recording, they changed their name. In 1965, as "George and Beatovens", they recorded a few songs on a tape recorder and sent them to Jiří Černý, at the time director of the radio hit parade Houpačka. He picked two songs - "Já budu chodit po špičkách" and "Povídej" (Tell Me). The songs became an immediate success. Novák's two friends were drafted, but after their return two years later, the band resumed its track. This was the time of the greatest artistic success for Novák.

Unfortunately, again, the political circumstances came to play. Novák got in trouble right in 1969 when, at the music festival Bratislava Lyre, he declared a minute of silence for Jan Palach. Due to his popularity, he did not get an official ban to perform, but the regime that frowned upon western-influenced music and his notorious hard-partying and drinking (combined with not eating; at one point, he would have a beer instead of breakfast, and then another instead of lunch) encouraged organizers not to hire him any more. After his lyricist Ivo Plicka emigrated in 1975, Novák was never able to fully resume his once-promising career. After '89, there was a renewed interest in his music, but due to his anorexia, he was getting ill, and he died in 1997 (aged 51) of heart failure and total exhaustion of his organism.

His friends recall him as being incredibly sensitive and kind. This reflects in both his songs and his vocal performance - a high, tender voice with a melancholic, romantic quality. His songs cover a large variety of subjects - from a tender lover putting his girlfriend to sleep, to the confession of a dying clown, but what connects all of them is profound sensitivity, thoughtfulness, and contemplation.

Modlitba pro Martu (A Prayer for Martha)

I'd like to dedicate the second part of this series to my number ONE favourite Czech singer, Marta Kubišová. And which other song to begin with than her signature song, A Prayer for Martha?

I'm going be returning to this extraordinary artist many times, because I'm simply in love with every single song she's sung. Her deep voice is captivating like none other's, and her soulful interpretation turns these profound lyrics into an almost transcendental experience.

This song - composed by Jindřich Brabec and written by Petr Rada - was originally written for the TV series Píseň pro Rudolfa III. (A Song for Rudolf III) in 1968 - then called simply "A Prayer". Unsurprisingly, it became immediately connected with the events of the Prague Spring and the following invasion. In 1989, it became the unofficial anthem of the Velvet Revolution. You can read more about this song here or here. Needless to say, in addition to some other protest songs Ms. Kubišová published in 1968-9, the song was banned by the Party and Ms. Kubišová could not perform publically any more.

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.