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"This is a piece I found in an international newspaper on the floor. And it's by Jane Klima. And it says, 'meanwhile, in Argentina'."
BUENOS AIRES
An Argentine brand of rock ‘n’ roll has upstaged the country's mournful tango as the theme tune of its postwar blues.
Rock Nacional, the music of the teen-agers who bore the brunt of the Falklands (Malvinas) War with Britain, has become a mass phenomenon after being shunned by the tightly controlled media for years.
Radio disc jockeys, obliged by the war to eliminate English lyrics from programs, resorted to Spanish-language rock and converted into overnight celebrities singers formerly branded as long-haired subversives.
The new idols of the young are all seasoned musicians in their 30s. Garcia, 31, is their first superstar.
A Christmas concert which drew 30,000 fans was given two hours on Jan. 1 by state-controlled television.
Garcia, in a parody of the superstar image, drove to the stage - a 30-meter high (100-foot) replica of Buenos Aires - in a pink Cadillac limousine, wearing a pink suit and spectacles.
The crowd danced wildly as he sang: “The gurkhas keep on advancing, the old cronies babble on TV, the leaders of the kids are drinking whisky with the rich, while the sparks fly in the plaza, where the workers mass together ..."
Rockets launched from behind the stage bombarded the fake, smoke-shrouded buildings to the sound of sirens and machine guns.
"Of course, I predicted all this in my famous song, Marquis Cha-Cha."
Commentary
< Post in progress >
The report is by the news agency Reuters (for whom Klima wrote), and therefore appeared, usually only lightly edited, in lots of newspapers. However, most newspapers gave the piece their own headline, and that’s how I confirmed that the newspaper MES had found on the floor was the International Herald Tribune, 2 February 1983, p.7. Which of course also matches the description of “international newspaper”.
MES’ reading (and therefore the text reproduced above) omits the original’s third paragraph:
“Before the war, young people apparently didn’t exist, but then the war came and they had to be recognized because it was young people who fought and died. And when they were recognized, everything they had surfaced, including rock ‘n’ roll,’ said the country’s best-known rock star, Charly Garcia.”
Footnotes
Sources / Links
- Ford, Simon (2003). Hip Priest: the story of Mark E Smith and The Fall. London: Quartet Books.
- Mackay, Tommy (2018). 40 Odd Years of The Fall. Place of publication unknown: Greg Moodie.
- Pringle, Steve (2022). You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record. [paperback edition]. Pontefract: Route Publishing Ltd. [Online store]
- Smith, Mark E. (1985). The Fall Lyrik & Texte Von Mark E. Smith. In Deutsch & Englisch. With Drawings by Brix. Berlin: The Lough Press. [AKA The Orange Book. Available online in The Internet Archive]
- Smith, Mark E. (2008). vII. The Lough Press & AMarquisManipulationProductions. [AKA the Blue Lyrics Book]