and work as night porters at hotels. Mercedes, like her parents before her, is suffering under the burden of not being able to feed her family. When she goes to the market, she buys the leftover ribs without meat on them—the bones can give some taste to the soup she cooks. For the first time in her life, she feels discouraged and depressed. This is not how she imagined life to be—not for herself or her son.
Artistically, Oscar Matus is a tremendous inspiration to Mercedes, and she finds great joy in singing his songs. He encourages her to dedicate herself even more to the original Latin American music traditions and to revive folk music, a genre that is about to be forgotten due to the onward march of contemporary music. He is the producer of her first two albums, La voz de la zafra (Voice of the Harvest) and Canciónes con fundamento (Songs with a Foundation). They often give concerts for the students at the campus of the University of Buenos Aires, where Mercedes receives considerable recognition from the students, who are impassioned by her voice and engaging personality. She always takes the time to talk with them and listen to their ideas. But at the same time, as her popularity increases, an artistic jealousy arises in Oscar and it taxes on their marriage. The financial pressure, still extant despite Mercedes’ recent accomplishments, affects their marriage further. Regardless of her affection for Oscar’s music, she is uncertain of the durability of their marriage. It seems that it is only their passion for music that keeps them together.
STARTING IN Chile under the influence of Violeta Parra and Víctor Jara, the New Song Movement (Nueva Canción Movimiento) spreads in the sixties and seventies all over Latin America. It is associated with revolutionary music because its musicians aim to unite with their listeners in a demand for democracy and social justice, hoping to achieve social and political change through music. The lyrics put issues such as poverty, imperialism, democracy, human rights, and religious freedom into the spotlight and relate to marginalized people by putting words to their struggles and their hopes. The song “Plegaria a un Labrador” (A Prayer to the Farmer), by Víctor Jara, for instance, deals with the need for agricultural reforms, giving farmers the right to own the land they cultivate.
Free us from the one who rules us in poverty.
Bring us your kingdom of justice and equality.
Blow, like wind, the flower of the ravine.
Clean, like fire, the cannon of my rifle.
Your will be done, finally, here on earth.
Give us your strength and your courage to fight.
Such ballads, loaded with political messages wrapped in evocative, poetic metaphors, are perceived as threats to oppressive governments. One of Mercedes’ favorite songs, which in many ways becomes equivalent to her own struggle and resilience, is “Como la Cigarra” (Like the Cicada), by the Argentine poet and children’s book writer María Elena Walsh.
I was killed so many times.
I died so many times
however, here I am
reviving.
I thank misfortune
and I thank the hand with the dagger
because it killed me so badly
that I went on singing
Singing in the sun
like the Cicada
after a year
under the earth
just like a survivor,
that’s returning from war.
Mercedes Sosa and Oscar Matus are the key figures of the New Song Movement in Argentina. With a desire to exchange ideas with artists and movements throughout Latin America, they meet with eleven other artists and poets in Mendoza on February 11, 1963, to sign the New Song Movement (Manifiesto Fundacional de Nueva Canciónero). The movement emphasizes the continent’s indigenous history and native cultural roots, making use of folk instruments like the Andean flute, the quena, pan pipes, and the ten-stringed charango.9
In Argentina, Mercedes and Oscar work closely with Armando Tejada Gómez, an Argentine poet living in Mendoza. Gomez writes the songs, Matus composes the music, and Mercedes Sosa provides the voice connecting the two. Mercedes never writes her own songs—her strength lies in interpreting the songs of others and making them her own. “I fall in love with a song like one falls in love with a man. I love what I sing,”3 she says.She gets many of her songs from Víctor Jara and Violeta Parra of Chile. “Gracias a la vida” (Thanks to Life), by the latter of the two becomes one of the movement’s best-known songs worldwide, thanks to Mercedes’ interpretation, which is remarkably persuasive and personal, so much so that the song becomes her trademark for good. In the Unites States it is sung by Joan Baez, who also uses her popularity as a vehicle for social protest, expressing anti-imperialist views resulting from the Vietnam War.
OSCAR MATUS is a fervent communist and supports militant methods. Mercedes joins him in the party, but she can’t accept its militant approach so she resigns shortly after. Despite the brevity of her membership in the Communist Party, she is pigeonholed the rest of her life as one of its members, stigmatized by right-wing politicians as communist and a threat. Meanwhile, the communists take advantage of her name appearing in their member lists, at the same time blaming her for not being a “real” communist because she doesn’t break with the Catholic Church. However, Mercedes doesn’t allow anyone to place her in a box. She is what she sings of in the song “Como un pájaro libre” (Like a Free Bird), a free bird who follows her heart and her conviction in everything she does.
Her involvement in the New Song Movement is an ideal platform where she can combine her art and her concern about human issues. She is a woman with a leftist ideology, but she doesn’t see herself as a political leader and doesn’t like being labelled as a protester either.10 “Were they protesting songs? I've never liked that label. They were honest songs about the way things really are. I am a woman who sings, who tries to sing as well as possible with the best songs available. I was bestowed this role as a big protester, but it is not like that at all. I am just a thinking artist. Politics has always been an idealistic thing for me. I am a woman of the left, though I belong to no party and think artists should remain independent of all political parties. I believe in human rights. Injustice pains me, and I want to see real peace,”11 she says.
By insisting on being an artist, she gets some enemies on the left, while her leftist ideology makes her an enemy of the right. It is a dilemma, but it doesn’t stop her from taking a stand in her music. “Sometimes a song needs to have a social content. But the primordial issue is one of honesty. In Latin America, the mere act of an artist being honest is itself political,”12 she says, and advocates that artists have the same rights to have an ideology as everybody else.
IT IS not only political dilemmas Mercedes has to overcome. She is also facing a moral dilemma; she has become pregnant for the second time. Mercedes loves children and wants more but feels it is irresponsible of her.8 Her career is consuming almost all of her time and energy, and she is living a turbulent, often changing life that lacks the safe environment necessary to raise a child. She is already struggling to be the mother she wants to be to Fabián, and it is a huge challenge for her to reconcile her high expectations of herself as a mother with her ambitions as an artist. She is overwhelmed by the
