Nº 01
SpanishChile, 1966Las Últimas Composiciones
“Gracias a la Vida”
Violeta Parra
Violeta Parra spent her life collecting Chile's folk songs village by village, then wrote the most famous one herself. “Gracias a la Vida” — “Thanks to Life” — is a hymn of gratitude: for eyes, for sound, for the alphabet, for the beloved's footsteps.
She wrote it while heartbroken, a year before she took her own life. That is the entire song: someone thanking life while it is breaking them. It became Latin America's unofficial anthem, sung at funerals, protests, and weddings alike. A model can imitate the melody in seconds. It cannot mean it.
What fans say
Muchos dicen: “Si Violeta amaba tanto la vida, ¿por qué se terminó suicidando?”… Que se haya quitado la vida no le hace menos grande ni le quita sentido a su obra maestra… Personas reales, intensas como Violeta hacen falta hoy en día. El tiempo solo ha logrado inmortalizarte, Violeta. ¡¡¡Gracias Violeta!!!Many ask: “If Violeta loved life so much, why did she end her own?”… Taking her life doesn’t make her any less great, nor does it strip meaning from her masterpiece… The world needs real, intense people like Violeta today. Time has only made you immortal, Violeta. Thank you, Violeta!!!
Es mi himno y no logró imaginar a cuantos millones de seres humanos les pasa igual que a mi.It’s my anthem, and I can’t even imagine how many millions of human beings feel exactly the same way I do.