Facundo Cabral and the Love of Life

I asked my eight year old son not long ago, while we were lying down on the grass enjoying the sunshine, to tell me something about the world. He said, "OK," thought for five seconds, then said, "the world is peaceful, graceful, and beautiful." This comes of course from the child who, when he and his brother were asked what they think Heaven is like, described their current life. (We must be doing something right.)

My son's statement about the world is a lot truer than what the media shows in what we call "the news." I don't usually watch the news. When I was younger I believed I should watch the news to be informed about what was going on in the world, but it didn't take long for me to notice that watching the news was just a way to be informed about all the bad things that happen in the world, collected and put together to make it seem like the world is a terrible place. The truth is most of the world is at peace and free of tragedy most of the time, the larger part of the world is like my son Awan says, "peaceful, graceful and beautiful" – even in the Third World, where I was born.

I don't watch the news, but I also don't want to be the only person at a meeting who doesn't know about some major world event that just happened, so sometimes I watch the muted headliners that the Spanish channel shows during the night time soap opera (yes, I confess to watching soap operas).

It was through the headline briefs that I learned of the death of Facundo Cabral, a beloved Latin American singer, songwriter and poet. To describe the shock and pain of this discovery, of what the tragic death of this singer means to the Latin world, the only thing I can think of is to compare it to what people in the US felt when they learned about the untimely death of princess Diana.

Facundo Cabral agreed with me and my son that the world is beautiful, in spite of all the strife, and Cabral knew a lot about strife.

He was the seventh child of a very poor family in Argentina. His father abandoned the family a day after his birth.  He said in interviews that at the age of nine he stopped the official vehicle of then-President Juan Domingo Peron and his wife, Evita, to ask for work for his mother, Sara. Eva Duarte, Argentina's first lady is quoted as saying that was the first decent thing she had heard that day. Everyone else was asking for charity, but Cabral had asked for work. This meeting led to the family moving to the city of Tandil, Cabral worked on a farm and had his first exposure to Argentinean folk music but also to alcohol and criminal activity.

Facundo said he was an alcoholic by age nine and up to no good in the streets, until he became a thief and was sent to a reformatory, at age fourteen, due to an act of violence. It was in this reformatory that he met a Jesuit priest who taught him to read and write and introduced him to classic literature. In three years, Cabral completed the equivalents to elementary, middle school and high school.

Cabral said that as a teen he had an encounter with a vagabond named Simon, who introduced him to religion and encouraged him to seek a career in music.

As a young man Facundo got a job playing an a hotel in a coastal city in Argentina. He had moderate success until he composed his most famous song: "No soy de aquí ni soy de allá" (I am not from here and I am not from there"translated at the bottom of this post)

Cabral found the love of his life and got married at forty, but both his wife and one year old daughter died in a plane crash a few years later. Cabral, devastated, went to meet Mother Theresa. He related that when she saw him she told him, "I know what your problem is" to which he thought that everybody knew what his problem was and that the world was a mess. She then continued, "Your problem is that you don't know where to put your love. You have so much of it, and now you don't know where to put it." This led to Cabral moving to Calcutta for a while to help Mother Teresa tend to people suffering from leprosy.

Cabral never remarried, devoting his life to his music. He wrote 66 books. On July 9 of 2011 Facundo Cabral was murdered while driving to the airport in Guatemala, where he had given a concert the night before. The target, some news services say, may have been his Nicaraguan promoter. He was 74 years old when he died.

For someone with his history it is amazing to read some of his quotes or to listen to the lyrics of his songs. Here are some examples:

• "Every morning is good news, every child that is born is good news, every just man is good news, every singer is good news, because every singer is one less soldier."
  
• "I'm amazed to form part of this amazing universe and I'm proud of the hunger that keeps me awake. Because when man is full he falls asleep."
  
• I always ask God, why did you give me so much? You gave me misery, hunger, happiness, struggle, lights... I saw everything. I know there is cancer, syphilis and spring, and apple fritters..
  
•  ...You think you lost something – it is not true, everything was given to you... You have lost no one -- those you loved who have passed on, are just ahead of you, and wait for you when your time comes.

The last quote is from his musical poem You are not depressed, only distracted, which you can listen to or read below:

I AM NOT HERE AND NOT FROM THERE (translated lyrics)


I like to walk, but I don't follow the paths, what is for sure is already devoid of mystery. I like to go very far in the summer, but go back to my mother in the winter, and see the dogs who never forgot me, and get the hugs I receive from my brothers. I like that, I like that.


Of course I like that.


I like the sunshine, Alice and doves, good cigars and the Spanish guitar,  jumping walls and opening windows, and girls in April.


I like wine as much as flowers, and rabbits, but not tractors, home made bread and the voice of Dolores, and the sea wetting my feet.


I am not from here and I am not from there, I have no age, or future, and being happy is the color of my identity.


I love to lie down always on the sand, or chase Manuela on my bike, or having all the time in the world to watch the stars while lying down with Maria on the wheat fields.

I am not from here and I am not from there, I have no age, or future, and being happy is the color of my identity.