Radio and the Catalan Protest Music.

I'll soon be going to the radio as I've started that again. If I want to be a journalist/reporter the best thing is to get myself a name. So I do the news, this year I'm hoping to write some for critic, of course I'm in the ISO mag and I may soon be involved in a politics program on the radio. Exciting!

The radio has always been a medium for change. Especially as in the 40s and 50s it was possible to broadcast under the radar, this is how the Catalan language was able to survive its prohibition for the first 20 years of Franco's regime. Speaking the language in public could land you in prison, especially in the bigger Catalan cities. However there were multiple clandestine gatherings across the nation and the continued presence of the Catalan government in exile gave strength to those fighting against fascism.
In the late fifties an article came out in a clandestine magazine published by the monks of Montserrat close to Barcelona. The article, by a singer called Serrahima said that "we need present songs [in Catalan]". From this article musicians started to get together and soon the group els setze jutges was born in Lleida. Its goal was to create Catalan music that was relevant to the times. Under the umbrella of this group dozens of musicians appeared. They would use the relative weakening of the regime to normalize Catalan. Or at least, make those too young to hear it in the street aware that it was also spoken outside of their houses or farms, that Catalan had its own existence as a language and its existence would only survive with the toppling of Franco and his cronies. The lyrics of these songs were extremely rich in metaphor. People knew what they actually meant but as they weren't explicit and sometimes non-understandable to the authorities, the singers were granted permission to tour. Sometimes their songs would be prohibited in one town, but allowed in another 30 km down the road. It all depended on the strength of the authorities around.

Father, tell me what they have done to the river,
that has ceased to sing.
It slips like a thorn, dead under an inch of white foam.
[...]
Father, the fields are no longer the fields,
Father, from the skies blood rains,
and the wind sings this crying.
[...]
Father, they're killing the earth,
Father stop crying,
they have declared war on us.

The snipets of this song by Serrat, called Pare, show how there is something wrong with this land, Catalonia & Valencia. We are not allowed to look after it any more and it is dying, the language is dying, as is the culture. With the song L'Estaca, by Lluis Llach, Franco is mentioned directly. The name Siset is a loving Catalan form of Francisco.

Siset can you not see the stake,
to which we are all tied?
If we can't undo ourselves 
we'll never be able to walk.
If we all pull
it'll surely fall
and much more time it cannot hold.
Surely it'll fall, fall, fall,
it must be rotten enough by now.

This song calls for everyone to help pull down the regime, the protest song called for civil liberties and a social welfare unknown of and only imaginable across those borders it was so hard to cross. It helped re-liven Catalan nationalism and it helped to topple the regime, or at least keep peoples' hopes up until the time was adequate.