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Notes
1. I would like to express my thanks to a number of people who have helped me in the research for this essay: my colleagues Ian Magedera and Lyndy Stewart for their assistance with the French version of “Un chant à Galice”, and Freya Jarman-Ivens for her advice on the musical aspects of the song. I would also like to thank María Liñeira, whose comment that Julio Iglesias “tamén é galego” started me along this path.
2. Julio Iglesias is perhaps the archetypal example of a transnational star; born in Madrid, the son of a Galician father and Andalusian mother, he is known internationally, with audiences throughout Europe, America, North Africa and Asia (“Julio Iglesias”). His official website is available in 21 languages. The default language is English, followed by Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Romanian, Indonesian, Chinese, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Danish, Swedish, Greek, Arabic, Hindi, Turkish, Hungarian, Hebrew and Persian (Galician, however, is nowhere to be seen). The lyrics to his songs can be searched in fourteen languages or language varieties, including both Galician (only “Un canto a Galicia” comes up) and the Argentinean-Spanish argot known as Lunfardo.
3. It should be noted that Iglesias's ambassadorial talents have not been confined to Galicia. In 1997, El País reported that he stood to earn over 500 million pesetas for his role as an ambassador for Spain's Valencia region (CitationEsquembre). It has subsequently emerged that the arrangement may not have been entirely above board and that a number of payments made to Iglesias by the Instituto Valenciano de la Exportación were being investigated as part of the so-called “caso Ivex” (CitationGarrido; CitationG del M).
4. All three singles are sung in Galician, with the Spanish-language song “Como el álamo al camino” as a B side. An EP issued by CBS in Argentina in the same year contained four tracks, including both Galician and Spanish versions of “Un canto a Galicia”. The following year, the single went Europe-wide: Decca released versions in Belgium (three different versions), the Netherlands, France and Germany; Roda released a version in Angola, and Melody Plaklari released the Spanish-language version in Turkey. The single has been re-released across Europe at various times in various guises; most recently three versions appeared in 1991 in Belgium with Columbia Records and the Netherlands with Sony (2 versions). The album of the same name, first released in Spain in 1971, was reissued by Columbia Records in 1982 and 1988; versions were also released in Belgium by Decca (1972); the Netherlands, also by Decca (1973, 1975); Germany by Philips (1973); Portugal by Roda (1973); and Venezuela by Palacio (1972). The most recent reissue of the album was by Musicplus in China in 2003 as part of a two-CD Digipak. The song, in various versions (Galician, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German), has also been included on over 80 of Iglesias's compilation albums not only in Europe and Latin America, but also in Japan, the USA, Canada, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Russia and Hong Kong (“Julio Iglesias”).
5. It might be argued that the equally restricted Galician music industry and its economic interests have limited the development of a healthy Galician commercial music sector, but the plethora of opportunities for performance—now complemented by electronic media—have meant that music has been accessible to audiences in a way that written texts, perhaps, have not.
6. Those interviewed, other than Reixa himself, include Julián Hernández (“Eu estaba alí cando naceu ‘Galicia caníbal'”); Xosé Manuel Pereiro (“Sementaron unha das árbores máis vizosas da actual música galega”); Xavier Valiño (“Galicia caníbal é o himno por excelencia do rock galego”); Belén Regueira (“Descubríronme que non todo era folc e lirismo choromicas”); Fanny + Alexander (“O que moitos grupos experimentaron despois xa o fixeran Reixa e os seus anos antes”); Martin Wu (“quizais foron o mellor grupo galego da historia”); Silvia Penide (“Algo tan simple como 'Fai un sol de carallo' é moi identitario”); and Toñito de Poi (“Escoitouse música en galego en todos os lados”).
7. For example, Julián Hernández—the lead singer of the Galician rock band Siniestro Total, contemporaries of Os resentidos, who released a cover version of “Galicia Caníbal”—observed in a recent interview that his band's use of Galician was not always driven by ideology: “La verdad es que Siniestro Total era tan de Madrid como de Vigo … sólo que explotábamos el rollo de Galicia porque, a fin de cuentas éramos de allí y de allí salían nuestras canciones” (CitationTurrón and Babas 48).
8. Although Saez also points out that Iglesias had spent much of the 1980s cosying up to the newly installed PSOE administration under Felipe González: “‘Tú eres un triunfador como yo’, dijo [en 1983] a un presidente casi recién estrenado.”
9. “Un canto a Galicia” [Galician, 1971] (Julio Iglesias): Eu quéroche tanto, / e aínda non o sabes … / Eu quéroche tanto, / terra do meu pai. // Quero as túas ribeiras / que me fan lembrare / os teus ollos tristes / que fan me chorare // [CHORUS] Un canto a Galicia, hey / terra do meu pae [sic]. / Un canto a Galicia, hey, / miña terra nae [sic]. // Teño morriña, hey, / teño saudade, / porque estou leixos / de esos teus lares (“Julio Iglesias”).
10. “Pae” and “nae” in this context are non-standard forms of the Galician “pai” (father) and “nai” (mother).
11. “Um canto à Galicia” [Portuguese, 1972] (Julio Iglesias/Marcelo Duran): Quem olhou teus campos / Não esquece mais / Eu te quero tanto / Terra dos meus pais. // Nesta terra existe / Muito amor e paz / Certos olhos tristes / Que eu amei demais. //[CHORUS] Um canto a Galicia, hei / Que eu amo demais / Um canto a Galicia, hei / Terra dos meus pais. // Pois lá eu tinha, hei / Felicidade, estou tão longe, hei / Tenho saudade (“Julio Iglesias”).
12. At the same time, however, the non-standard Galician word “leixos” (a hypercorrect appropriation of Spanish “lejos”) that appeared in the 1971 version is replaced in the 1998 version by the standard Galician “lonxe” (although see below for further discussion of this).
13. “Un chant à Galicia” [French, 1998] (Julio Iglesias/Etienne Roda-Gil): Je t'aime, je t'aime, / Je suis de ta graine / Je t'aime, comme je t'aime / Terre de mes pères // J'aime tes rivières / O[ugrave] se noient mes rêves / Et tes grands yeux tristes / Comme ceux de ma mère // [CHORUS] Un chant à Galicia, hé / Un chant pour la terre / Un chant à Galicia, hé / Mère de mes pères. // Terre de quel seigneur / Eut du courage / Terre de pierres levées / De femmes graves // Des hommes sombres / Et leur courage / Des femmes belles / Dans leur corsage / Des pierres qui dansent / Pour le solstice / Des femmes qui chantent / Le sacrifice (“Julio Iglesias”).
14. There is also a more literal French version, dated to 1972, which appears to have circulated in the 1970s (“Julio Iglesias”). In the earlier version, the final quatrain is translated literally: J'ai le mal du pays, hé / J'ai la nostalgie / Parce que je suis loin / De tes foyers (so that “mal du pays” is equated to “morriña” and “nostalgie” to “saudade”).
15. There is also a clip of the German version, “Wenn ein Schiff voruberfahrt” (When a Ship Goes By) and a search on the German title brings up a total of three videos.
16. “Un canto a Galicia” is not the only part of Iglesias's work to have been reinterpreted by a new generation of consumers and/or performers. Colmeiro briefly analyses the experimental cantautor Javier Álvarez's sampling of “one of the old signature songs of Latin crooner Julio Iglesias ('soy un truhán, soy un señor')” in the song “Padre” which “offers a deconstruction of patriarchal mythologies of the past, in the ironic form of an irreverent religious confession … and a coming out manifesto” (Colmeiro 43–4). Álvarez's use of Iglesias, embodiment of the Latin lover and thus closely connected with stereotypical images of Hispanic masculinity, within a musical form that undermines such stereotypes in both form and message underlines the power of new cultural forms to help us to examine stereotypes.