against repression
Known as “el noi del Poble Sec” [el chico de Poble Sec, en catalán]for the popular Barcelona neighborhood where he grew up -and where a plaque now commemorates his birth on December 27, 1943-, Serrat began his career in the mid-60s.
A committed singer with deep sensitivity in his lyrics, he was one of the representatives of the “Nova Cançó Catalana”, although his first great success would come in 1969. with the album in Spanish dedicated to the Spanish poet Antonio Machado.
With firm progressive ideals, Serrat belongs to the generation of artists who fought against the Franco regime (1939-1975), which he did not hesitate to annoy when he refused to sing in Eurovision because he could not do it in Catalan.
“I have lived all my life with both languages and I have not had a problemOn the other hand, what I cannot live with is the repression of one of the two,” he recently said, referring to both his fight against the ban on Catalan during the dictatorship and his subsequent criticism of the independence movement.
The son of a Catalan worker and an Aragonese woman who intensely suffered death and the harshness of the Civil War (1936-1939), he went into exile for a few months in Mexico in the last throes of Francoism and never hid his opposition to the South American military dictatorships.
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Memory, roots and freedom pervade the work of this artist with a vibrant voice and warm poetry, recognized with multiple awards such as the 1st National Prize for Contemporary Music or the Legion of Honor medal of the French Republic.
I do not retire. I just scroll
The announcement of his farewell provoked a trail of reactions and recognitions, such as the Grand Cross of the Civil Order of Alfonso X the Wise -the largest in Spain for those who are not heads of state-, which was presented to him in February by the Spanish president, Pedro Sanchez.
During his farewell tour in Latin America, He also met with the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and with the Chilean Gabriel Boric.
More than half a year of emotional farewells, although Serrat remembers that he gets off the stage, but never from music.
“I don’t retire. I just move,” he pointed out in September.