8.
Singers-Songwriters
and Alternative Rock
(1970 – 1988)
Pete Seeger in Czechoslovakia in
1964
• Pete Seegers visit in 1964! (doplnit z Irenina článku)
• “How come they do not perceive the heaviness of folklore in USA?
Seeger’s traditional repertoir being so much poorer than ours?”
(Košťál in Přibylová255)
• Seeger getting angry at tenth Czech musicians who said he was not
interested in folklore, saying that Czech folklore is dead.
• Pete Seeger played here We shall overcome a song he learned from a
friend at the demonstration in American South in 1940! Now he
taught it Czech musicians and the song was sung, in Czech, in 1989!
• Booed when he played anti-Vietnam song– considered as Communist
propaganda (Přibylová 2018)
• 5 string benjo, 12-string guitar! OPENED “FOLK”!!!!
Pete Seeger (we shall overcome!)
• “One link in a long chain” min.16
Situation of Folk/Singers-
Songwriters before 1989
1. Official (Nobody!)
2. Underground circle (“We want to do our own things!“)
3. Alternative/ Semi-Official
4. Emigration (Karel Kryl, after 1978: Hutka, Třešňák, Soukup, Karásek)
Underground Singers-Songwriters
• ...1974
• Charlie Soukup: Radio
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zgi5fxUJ25w
When I come home from work When I wake up in the morning
and the work is over And I do not feel like getting up
I want culture I scoot over to the receiver
I do not live only by bread alone I'm going to go to work
I'll sit on a chair with radio station Prague
right next to the radio I will take morning excersise!
turn the knob The gloom of the night falls off me
I love this! and I sing a song!
On the radio, they play so well on On the radio, play well, on the
the radio radio
On the radio, they play so well on On the radio, play well, on the
the radio radio
[...]
Svatopluk Karásek
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG5MTnE7xhQ
• Angel rolled the stone away --- Já jsem ňákej stounavej
Angel Rolled the Stone Away
Angel rolled the stone away Maybe I should study languages
Angel rolled the stone away Or read a classic novel
Early on the Easter Sunday morning
Angel rolled the stone away But I end up looking at porn
And I am sort of sick from this
And I have been sort of sick
At work I want to stand up for truth
And I have been sort of sick
And then I tell myself: you better be careful
That in my life love is missing everywhere
I end up shutting up
And I have been sort of sick from this
And I have been sick from this.
(…)
• Rev. D.C. Rice
Karel Kryl
His Majesty the Executioner
… A horrible state it was,
Over the governmental palace as you had to watch
rises the flag with guillotine the writing being forbidden
The children love ice cream and the singing being forbidden
The judges were upset about them And they didn't have enough
so they killed the ice cream man So they commanded the kids
to pray the way how his Majesty
Executioner wished
Aaah to pray the way how his
Majesty Executioner wished!
Saffron – Šafrán Association
• After 1969 solitude, frustration
• 1971 Hutka and Třešňák and Merta “selling guitars“
• Šafrán: Saffron “roof organization“ of folk musicians
• Something between Charter 77 and colaboration (Merta)
• Few people!
• Free people!
• Held “free“ values in public!
Jaroslav Hutka (born 1947)
• Hutka: Náměšť
Beautiful is the air. More beautiful is the Most desolate of all, most desolate of
sea. all is living without love.
Beautiful is the air. More beautiful is the sea.
Powerful is the weapon, more
Most beautiful of all, most beautiful of all are powerful is law.
smiling faces. Powerful is the weapon, more
powerful is law.
Solid is the table. More solid is the mountain.
Most powerful of all, most powerful of
Solid is the table. More solid is the mountain. all is the truthful word.
Most solid of all, most solid of all is human Big is the earth, lapped by the water.
faith. Big is the earth, lapped by the water.
Desolate is the desert and the distant Biggest of all, biggest of all, is human
heavens. freedom.
Desolate is the desert and the distant
heavens.
Vlasta Třešňák
Vlastimil Třešnák – Zeměměřič / Land
Surveyor
• ...
I'll throw my hands
Twenty meters
And I say “you know…”
The boss called “how many?”
“You have a forest, a pub
And I answered “thirty” in the wind So what are you missing here?”
The stick stood in a puddle I sat beside him
And I follow, my ankles deep in water And I'm talking
My boss is curiously counting "But you know …"
The waistlenght of the square “This is how I have walked every day for thirty years“
The boss says and points to the ground
With geodesic cross I promised him
I'm like a martyr running in the field to buy his map when I get my wage
We measured the land limit He laughed
And then my boss called
He got up
He says
"Lunch!"
"Let's go"
He pulled out salami, bread and a bag of salt
With a cross of earth
He sat down I'm like a martyr running in the field
And he called me to him With a survey cross in a field
Between the bites he asked
So how do you like it here "
Vladimír Merta
Vladimír Merta -- Vzdálené výstřely,
1989
• Vzdálené výstřely • Místa střetů se sice mění
Do vlastních řad Ale rány vojáků jsou vždycky jisté
Pýcha prý stíhá pýchu Střílejí do svých dětí
Pýcha prý předchází pád A říkají si bůh ví proč komunisté
Katyně, Gdaňsk, Praha Možná to říkám za sebe
Tbilisi, Peking, Baku, Berlín, Budapešť Možná tak trochu taky za vás
Co jméno, to zlá zpráva Jestli se bojíme mluvit potichu
A krev z dlažby smyje déšť
Zkusme to tedy mlčet nahlas...
[Chorus]
Kdo cestou k moci vraždil Vzdálené výstřely
Vraždí a bude vraždit dál Na Náměstí nebeského míru
Nám vzali všechny iluze
Po létech vychází najevo Naději, lásku, víru
Že šlo jen o omyly jedinců
Úchylky napravo, nalevo A ruce vrahů nad městem
Zaplacené životy tisíců Cynicky rozdávají metály
Vojáčkům, jako malým bezprizorním dětem
Bezejmenné milióny nevinných Které u zkoušky ohněm obstály
Povstali z hrobů a bloudí ulicemi
Žalují pod okny živých Násilí táhne ulicemi
Na věky věků budou bloudit po naší zemi... Od rána do večera
Ale svět už nebude nikdy stejný
[Chorus] Jako byl ještě včera...
Kdo cestou k moci vraždil
Vraždí a bude vraždit dál Počty mrtvých se sice mění
Statistika mívá mrtvá místa
Nedal nepřítel ale komunista... Ale rozkazy jménem lidu
The places of clashes are changing
Distant shots But the wounds of soldiers are always certain
To your own ranks They shoot at their children
Pride is said to pursue pride And they call themselves – God knows why –
Pride is said to precede a fall Communists
Katyne, Gdansk, Prague Maybe I say it for myself
Tbilisi, Beijing, Baku, Berlin, Budapest Maybe a little for you, too
Every name, bad news If we're afraid to speak quietly
And the blood from the paving is washed away by the
Let's be silent loudly...
rain Distant shots
On Heavenly Peace Square
[Chorus] They‘ve stripped us all illusions
Who murdered on the way to power Hope, love, faith
He murders and will continue to murder
And the hands of the killers over the city
Years later it becomes clear Cynically giving out prizes
That it was just the mistakes of individuals Toy soldiers, like small, childless children
Deviations to the right, to the left Who passed the fire test
The lives of thousands paid
Violence pulls through the streets
Nameless millions of innocents
From dawn to dusk
They rose from graves and wandered through the streets
But the world will never be the same again
Like he was yesterday ...
They sue under the windows of the living
Forever and ever they will wander our country The numbers of dead are changing
Statistics tend to have blind spots
But orders on behalf of the people
Were given not the enemy but by the
communist ...
Dagmar Andrtová-Voňková
• https://youtu.be/0mM4R6X39g8
when death comes
to break my life,
my last gulp
will again be your lava
Vodňanský and Skoumal: Maršálové
Jiří Bulis?
• Had to be aware that there might be a spy.
• Hard to play in appartments: people who offered their appartment
would get in trouble.
• Not really fear, but anger at the system (Merta, Andrtová-Voňková)
• Police interrogations... don’t be stupid... then emigration...we will not
let you stay here...
FORCED EMIGRATION – “ASANACE”
• Kryl was the first to emigrate
• 1976 Asanace! Assanation. The best is to get rid of underground to force
them to immigration. When the régime locks here someone up, it creates
uproar in the West!
• When they force people to emigrate, then nothing happens!Interrogations,
sometimes accopmanied by physical torment (Třešnák, Charlie Soukup)
• Not easy being migrant: from being a hero to being a zero (Hutka)
• „We fucked up a part of generation for you“ – Jirous, Třešňák
“Protest Song”
• Values represented in songs since the Homeric days…and we saw some already in social bandit
songs!
• BROAD DEFINITION:
• Elizabeth Kizer(1983)? Broad definition, includes not only “too much monkey business” but also
Spirituals and Rolling stones love songs challanging conventional lifestyles and sexual behavior!
• NARROW DEFINITION:
• Přemysl Rut “Protest song wants to change reality (like mass song), so it does not look for
adequate words but for strong words.“ – cf. “In some instances the writer sets out to use the
song medium as a tool of influence or personal gain“ (Kizer 7).
• Problem! Jirous was aware of the problem of “being reactive“.
• “I will write a protestsong“ vs. talking about politics in some songs
from one’s playlist…
• Thoreau from “On the Duty of Civil Disobedience”: „If I devote myself
to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I
do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get
off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too.”
TUE: Alternative (Rock): Punk and
New Wave
• Late 1970s, early 1980s…
FPB
https://www.youtube.com/watch? He was just pondering in his ego
v=ZZRIHQrz3U0
And he still didn't know what he
wanted to be
Furt jenom ve svým egu hloubal vomit of crap flowed from his
A pořád nevěděl, čím chtěl by bejt mouth about how succesful he
Z huby mu tekly zvratky keců o would be one day
tom, jak jednou bude světovej, And yet the caries eat up his
bones and everyone laughed at
A přitom kostižer ho provrtával až
jednou upad a každej se mu smál, him, at the mangy egoist!
Egoista jeden prašivej
Visací Zámek (Traktor, VZ)
The coop worker and the bitch they have fun in front of the new pub
It's a tractor it's Zetor Let's get drunk together first
It goes to the mountains to plow potatoes and then we'll kill your wife
It's a tractor it's Zetor And we'll kill the kids
He goes to the mountains to plow potatoes
Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth
Farmers sow potatoes, then they place manure Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth
and then they dig them up
The young man greases his pocket The coop worker kills his wife, vomits,
shakes the dough and then kills the whore with pitchfork
in front of an easy woman Thank you very much for the advice
Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth
Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth Crime rate Crime rate Crime rate among Youth
…
Zuby Nehty/Dybbuk: But let the devil snatch it!
In the morning I meet the one The fate of every woman,
who says dirty words. they say it is so ...
There is sadness coming from him I know what they will be,
but to hell with it. but let the devil snatch it!
Why serious words, Ref.
to what's going on?
I'm a little sorry, I'll meet him again in the evening,
but let the devil snatch it! looking for answers.
I don't know why he's changed,
Ref: I have to drink all the cokes, but let the devil snatch it!
sneak through the fields,
to go to all schools, Why use serious words,
but let the devil snatch it! about what's going on?
I'm a little sorry,
The girls sit quietly, but let the devil snatch it!
they have big plans.
Ref.
Of which few remain,
but let the devil snatch it!
Tatterman -- Pražský Výběr, Michal Kocáb
Tatterman tatterman, stood by the cannon and kept loading it No matter how you look,
His spite, that tatterman, he fired at me
That I should today (ahaa), not miss the ball (ahaa) Tattermania
Where is my dress (ahaa), you go to that party (ahaa) will dig itself under your
Tatrman, what’s wrong with him, why can’t he leave me
alone!
nails
The bag of envy, that tatrman, is dragging behind him No matter how you look,
Says he was afraid (ahaa) that I would miss the ball (ahaa) tattermania
The carriage and spray (ahaa), he prepared (ahaa)
He's always laughing, it's crazy will reveal your fake cards
His sarcasm turns words into arrows No matter how you look,
He allows me no peace, he casts doubt over everything
Why does he keep on nagging, turning everything inside out
Tattermania
Will reveal dark corners
of your soul!
• Band names all in Czech! (vs. the r’n’r 1960s generation!)
• Everyone singing in Czech! Important for the message in the head!
• Like „Je to zlý“ (It is bad)
• “We can be sure, it is all bad…” (Hudba Praha)
Polemics btw. “Jan Krýzl” vs. Jan Vlček
1983
• Good old Pete Seeger, Dylan, • You do not know the facts.
Beatles, Rolling Stones singing • Just as you are critical of punk now,
against Vietnam and against racism you were critical before of Lennon a
• Current New Wave is designed by while ago, opportunism…
capitalist ideologues and makes • Working class heroes! The Clash met at
youth to “escape to passivity, and the unemployment agency.. The
creates totally paralyzed attitudes” Damned, Johnny Rotten…
• Punk is critical of capitalism!
• Our state needs to do something
with this! To rectify it! • New wave becomes a first form of
folklore in industrial society! A new
• Names concrete Czech punk and music appears which everyone, who
New Wave bands (who got in has something to say, can do! It does
trouble) not look at the tecnique…“
1970s and 1980s Music Official and
Samizdat
Official records: The Doors, Bob Dylan’s Hard Rain, Eric Clapton, Brian Adams…
Tapes! Burza.
Persecuted by the state
Publishing Houses in Exile:
Boží Mlýn (God’s Mill) in Canada. Paul Wilson: focus PPU and Underground
(Šafrán 78) in Sweeden. Jiří Palas focus: singers-songwriters
“Poslechovky” (Listening Sessions). Jiří Černý “Twelve on the Rocker“)
Monday 20 April: 1989
Late 1980s: régime insecure, perestrojka in USSR! But Czech establishmen was still afraid of Prague
Spring! And now, with Gorbachev there was “Spring“ in USSR itself!
Nico concert in Brno and Prague in 1985!
Even some punk records published in late 1980s. Difficulty of being music organizers!
Havel president
Rolling Stones Concert in Strahov stadium, 1990 free concert
„Distinction between high and popular culture has been eroded“ – Mitchell
Havel with Jagger,
Havel appointing Frank Zappa „special advisor on trade, culture, and tourism“ to the Czechoslovak
government.
• Lou Reed’s concert!
• Interview Havel for Rolling Stone, though the magazine later spiked
the interview!
• Did Czechoslovak pop culture go into deep freeze after 1968?
• Did the Culture?
• Havel made links between 1980s and 1960s America..
• dangerous? what than happens with twenty years of your life?
Rejection because of siginging agreement wiht coming of the tanks?
• Lennon Wall! as a proof of this...
• SOS rasismus! During first free elections in June 1990 – Havel pulled
Paul Simon out of a hat...
• Can actually popular music assume a non-ideological role? Which it
did, according to Mitchell, assume after 1989... [x Bryggs]
• ***self-delusion of grandeur....***
• „dissmissals of Eastern bloc rock in the western popular music press,
where little attempt is made to consider its history of technological
and informational deprivation“
• Noone was interested in RnR bands from the East in the West!!! They
are doing what we were doing 20 years ago....
Obstructed or created? Cf. Slavoj Žižek!
Jonathyne Bryggs (2015)
• 1. RnR in the East was not only political...
• 2. RnR in the West was not apolitical: „non-conformity of sub-cultures
as a political act“
Western and Eastern Europe in reception of RnR share the following (at
least at the early stage of reception)
1. Fear of American music as part of fear of Americanization
2. Gender anxieties
3. Youth deliquency.
Main claim disputable:
„The hooligans, rockers, hippies, and punks had analogues throughout
Europe. And in the East, these young people imagined rock to have a
socialist beat.“
No contribution from Czech or Slovak music scholars or journalists to
support this claim.
Ok, bands like Olympik, who managed later in 1980s, but...
Specific situation here.
