A LOT OF CINEMA, YES. AND THE MUSIC… WHAT?
We wanted 2020 to end but, as 2021 has started, I am not wrong if I say that, at the rate we are going, we will end up missing last year sooner than we thought.
In addition to continuing with the sad pandemic that has plagued us for a year now, the events that occurred in the first weeks of this year (assault on the Capitol, snowfalls that have paralyzed entire cities, pace of vaccinations, power surges …) are so varied that would give to write enough articles reflecting on the situation in which we find ourselves, but as reality is as it is, writing is a good way to, within the gray, bring a little color to life and that is the intention of these lines.
There are many articles that have been written about the cinema and the Courts, carefully examining films such as “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “Twelve Merciless Men”, “Philadelphia”, “Anatomy of a Murder” … but few that have been written about music and courts; Because, let’s not fool ourselves, the courts and their entire universe has been a source of inspiration for many musical themes that, music lovers, have accompanied us throughout our lives; as soon as we scratch at the music, we will find Deans, Policemen, thieves, Guard Courts, Roman law books, even administrative law… ..
The only intention of these lines is, through a handful of songs, to make a friendly account of the place where many of us spend many hours of our lives, trying to evade, even a little bit, the reader of these days that we are living.
Without a doubt, the world of law has been a source of inspiration for many artists; nobody in their right mind would talk about Roman Law in a song except him… .. A Penguin in my elevator; It had so much value that it was capable of introducing not only Roman law but also administrative law into the lyrics of a song; As for the first subject, it is enough to review the lyrics of “El Balneario”, in which a friendly old man, fed up with boredom, after calling the Notary to disinherit his nephew Zacarías, plans a series of criminal acts – that I will not be the one to reproduce here- and he has the confidence that the Commissioner “I would not suspect a poor old man, absorbed in the study of roman law and eastern philosophy”.
And continuing with El Pingüino, we already announced above that it also gave the administrative law And all while he was “Spying on my neighbor”, with the telescope that he had bought with last month’s salary and after having pawned, in addition, the chandeliers and the sale of the Pekingese; but since the night before had been complicated, he ended up recognizing that “last night’s hangover is going to last me a month, the administrative law book, still on page six”.
Without a doubt, the branch of law that has most inspired our artists has been criminal law and one of those that has written the most inspired by that environment has been, for me, one of the greatest; Joaquin Sabina.
The one from Úbeda has the ability, in many of his songs, to tell us a short story that, developed, could well be a new crime novel. And as an example, the following.
Let’s start with what, unfortunately, we find many times in the Guard Court, the detainee who surprises everyone because no one around him could imagine that he would end up committing an atrocity and that individual Sabina calls him “Citizen Zero”; The story begins with the Commissioner, after the crime, who begins to make inquiries to discover the personality of the offender and there he is, the owner of the hostel where he had stayed and whom he describes, the host, as “An individual of those who keep quiet for not making noise, a regular loser in so many battles that oblivion wins” (…) “He never gave the slightest cause for alarm, Commissioner, no one imagined that he would hide a weapon inside the closet“And, thus in the first person, that” Citizen Zero “, who could be many of the detainees who, after their crime were looking for a minute of glory on the news, shouts”when they put him in a milk churn, finally arrested,
Continuing with that of Úbeda and with another of his songs, “When I was younger”, full of longing and nostalgia for times gone by, he tells us how “when I was younger I traveled in dirty trains that went north, and I slept with girls who were doing it with men for the first time, I bought sausages and then forgot to pay the amount, when I was younger I have been handcuffed in front of the judge “.
And, without a doubt, talking about Sabina and “chorizos” is talking about that “Pact between gentlemen”; In the scarce four minutes that the subject lasts, he does a good review of the Penal Code and takes ahead quite a few legal assets of a different nature. Let’s see: it all starts on any given night last month, “it could be that it was thirteen, what difference does it make? Could it be Tuesday?“When Sabina himself, who was walking down the street, was robbed by some young men, so young that”he was not more than twenty the oldest of the three boys who came to rob me last month“, They wanted the money for”subsidize a peak“; the stolen items were “ten five hundred and a wig Omega brand“The criminal type was robbery with violence because they used a kitchen skewer that they placed in Sabina’s throat; in the middle of the robbery, one of the active subjects of the crime recognized the taxpayer and told him “Hey, buddy, you look like Sabina, the one who sings”, From there, a story of camaraderie is unleashed between the four that leads them“to an American bar” in which “They controlled three whores”(Yet another criminal type) but Sabina was reserved for the charms of a“such Maruja the horny“; after hanging out there, “protected by the moon they borrowed a car “ (another crime to add) Sabina was left at her home and told “Enlist and make us a beautiful couplet, of yours“They yelled at him and also”his money, chain, wallet and watch were returned intact with a wink“(Here I see a spontaneous repentance and reparation of the damage) and Sabina, who always fulfills a pact”when it is between gentlemen, I had to write this song for them“; at the end, after a few months, the three boys got into it again and in the assault on a millionaire’s house (yet another type: robbery in an inhabited house) “The police waited for him at the door, a lot, a lot, police….”.
The world of crimes and the courts has also been a quarry for the song, who does not remember La Parrala denying things before the Judge; let’s remember history; from La Parrala it was not very clear if it was from “Mogué” or it was from “La Parmá”, the gossip said that he hit the bottle, “some said yes, others said no“; the point is that La Parrala cried and drank and everyone wondered why until “two men quarreled early in the morning inside the grocery store where she sang, and the one who was wounded said upon expiring “it’s your fault it was Trini la Parrala;” and now … we arrive: “The judges the next day, the Trini asked if he knew that man and the Trini answered. I have not seen him in my life nor do I know why they killed him”. In the end… .the mystery is not revealed and the couplet ends with that of “¿¿who buys me this mystery ?, guess riddle; For whom does he cry, for whom does he drink, for whom does the Parrala suffer?”
Continuing with the criminal issue and focusing now on the Courts of Gender Violence, we can here remember Fito Páez and his “It rains on wet”, when he talks about that “yesterday Juliet denounced Romeo for mistreatment, in court, when reason and desire lie down, it rains on wet”, Something so repeated in one of those Courts to which I have referred.
“The 23rd court”, by Rocío Durcal, does not beat around the bush either in terms of the setting or in terms of the recipient of the message, which is none other than that Judge who is going to sign a separation between two people who have loved each other; the summons had been made to the parties at 10 in the morning and the image it describes also reminds a court of gender violence when it says “I’m afraid to find him, I feel like hugging him to ask him why“And the message that the protagonist of the story sends to the judge is not wasted”How can you, Mr. Judge, you who have studied so much, not recognize the cry of two who love each other so much before God and in front of you; How can you, Mr. Judge, just in a second, change the course of life and end our world, with your signature on paper”.
If in recent years someone is obsessed with judges (and I have been lucky enough to tell them in person) that is Rulo y la Contrabanda, in addition to not having much faith in public defenders, when in “November” he says “How am I going to get rid of vices? If I have less will than my public defender“In” 32 Escaleras “he ends up recognizing, regarding his girl that”you became my muse, my bedside, my judge, my lawyer, my jailer“; but if there is a delicate subject to describe a love breakup, that is “Polaroid”; Metaphorically, he describes the breakdown of a relationship by saying things like this: “Your fingerprints remain on my back, the police have opened an investigation, the forensic said here the thing is very clear, the culprits of the destruction were two. Shrapnel was left on the walls. The room still smells of gunpowder. Two selfish men facing each other. Others call it love”. Anyway … it looks like the record of a corpse removal.
And, as a culmination, we have now reached the sentence, never a sentence “To forced labor” was so delicately written as Antonio Vega did; because of how short and beautiful it is, I think it is worth transcribing it in its entirety: “To forced labor it condemns me, my heart, of which I gave you the key. I do not want torment to end and I claim my sentence of steel. My soul does not conceive greater sorrow, that freedom without a kiss that hinders it, nor does it conceive less serious punishment than a full love cell with you. (…) May no judge declare my innocence because in this long-term process I will only seek the life sentence of your embrace”.
So these lines concluded, with a sentence like the one Antonio Vega was looking for, nothing more to add; just keep enjoying the music that, in times like what we have to live, help a lot to bear the weight of events.
Maria Carmen Romero Cervero
Contentious-Administrative Court No. 2 Mérida-Badajoz
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