00:00:32.583 --> 00:00:39.666
You ask what’s happened to me
in these last months since I left

00:00:39.833 --> 00:00:46.000
with the oldest of birds
that migrate to the sun,

00:00:46.083 --> 00:00:52.666
if my song has died
between dreams of love

00:00:53.833 --> 00:00:59.833
And you confuse the lack of faith with
the sorrow and tears that today mark my temple

00:01:01.791 --> 00:01:08.458
and among so many questions you start to believe
that I’ve forgotten your kiss

00:01:08.500 --> 00:01:16.375
and your way of being, that nothing has come of
losing the beauty of so much pampering

00:01:32.000 --> 00:01:37.875
This is a period of my life
that I don't like to talk about.

00:01:38.000 --> 00:01:44.875
It brings back very bad
memories, the worst in my life.

00:01:45.000 --> 00:01:46.375
You ask me,

00:01:46.541 --> 00:01:51.875
and I'm going to tell you
the facts as they happened.

00:01:52.000 --> 00:01:57.250
And believe me, I wish this was
the last time I had to speak

00:01:57.291 --> 00:01:59.541
about this in public.

00:01:59.916 --> 00:02:01.666
Hopefully.

00:02:12.333 --> 00:02:16.041
I found my first guitar

00:02:16.041 --> 00:02:20.333
one December 25th under the Christmas tree.

00:02:21.208 --> 00:02:25.083
Since then we have been inseparable.

00:02:25.208 --> 00:02:29.125
I acquired the pleasure
of reading at home.

00:02:29.291 --> 00:02:35.166
I remember my father bought us
an encyclopedia that had several volumes.

00:02:35.291 --> 00:02:39.583
It was one of the family's last purchases.

00:02:41.375 --> 00:02:45.833
Then everything began to disappear.

00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:51.750
And it's easy to say, but in those years
being a gentleman meant

00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:53.875
you had ideological problems.

00:02:56.833 --> 00:03:03.375
The more vulgar you were, the more you
fitted into Cuban society at that time.

00:03:03.500 --> 00:03:07.833
The famous New Man project
was beginning to take shape,

00:03:07.916 --> 00:03:13.458
which in the end resulted in that
social monstrosity from which they now

00:03:13.458 --> 00:03:16.416
don't know how to free themselves.

00:03:19.916 --> 00:03:25.833
My conflicts with the world began
at the end of my adolescence,

00:03:25.958 --> 00:03:30.625
when I started to clash with the environment
because of my musical tastes,

00:03:30.625 --> 00:03:32.208
and then because of my ideas,

00:03:32.208 --> 00:03:35.750
my philosophy of life.

00:03:35.875 --> 00:03:39.125
My first songs date from that time,

00:03:39.250 --> 00:03:43.375
all the result of falling in love,

00:03:43.541 --> 00:03:50.666
sometimes platonic, because I was
always a shy, introverted boy.

00:03:50.791 --> 00:03:55.708
I met Mike in late '68, early '69,

00:03:55.875 --> 00:03:58.250
because I was going to join

00:03:58.291 --> 00:04:06.000
the DADA group, a rock band in which
he composed, sang and played guitar.

00:04:06.625 --> 00:04:10.625
I remember a girl that fell in love
with me because of a song.

00:04:10.666 --> 00:04:12.666
She said: After composing a song like that,
who isn't going to fall in love with you?

00:04:12.750 --> 00:04:15.708
The song was Mike's,
and I didn't clarify, of course.

00:04:15.791 --> 00:04:20.000
I can see you sitting on the edge of
an echo hundreds of years old,

00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:21.500
willing to stand up when the world ends.

00:04:21.583 --> 00:04:23.958
You look at me again and rub your hands

00:04:23.958 --> 00:04:24.875
all over your flowers.

00:04:24.916 --> 00:04:29.625
All of our things burst out in laughter.
And the echo asks if this is the cold,

00:04:29.625 --> 00:04:31.458
scarce of the sound of piers and kisses.

00:04:31.541 --> 00:04:36.375
The fragment of space where we felt
in love ceased to be ours.

00:04:36.458 --> 00:04:39.083
It's inhabited by two living people.

00:04:43.083 --> 00:04:47.125
Many of those lazy hipsters,
children of the bourgeoisie

00:04:47.500 --> 00:04:53.083
walk around in
small and very tight jeans,

00:04:53.208 --> 00:04:58.541
some of them with a little guitar

00:04:58.583 --> 00:05:02.041
in Elvis Presley-like attitudes.

00:05:02.166 --> 00:05:07.291
Don't confuse the
serenity of the Revolution,

00:05:07.291 --> 00:05:13.250
and the equanimity of the Revolution,
with weaknesses of the Revolution.

00:05:13.375 --> 00:05:16.583
Socialist society

00:05:18.958 --> 00:05:22.541
cannot allow such degenerations.

00:05:24.333 --> 00:05:27.625
Mike is a man of few words.

00:05:27.750 --> 00:05:31.708
He prefers not to participate
as much in the social world.

00:05:31.791 --> 00:05:35.375
The great lyricist of the young trova.

00:05:35.500 --> 00:05:39.333
At that time Mike had a knowledge of baroque music

00:05:39.333 --> 00:05:42.333
that was truly amazing.

00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:46.000
He has extraordinary
conditions to create.

00:05:46.083 --> 00:05:50.916
It's a kind of song, let's
say, troubadour-like, but with

00:05:50.916 --> 00:05:53.125
a more modern harmonic sense.

00:05:53.208 --> 00:05:58.208
He's a very complete troubadour,
in the sense that he is

00:05:58.208 --> 00:06:01.958
a great musician
and also a great poet.

00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.125
I think Mike should have made
his first album sooner than I did.

00:06:06.208 --> 00:06:07.625
But well, it was my turn.

00:06:10.916 --> 00:06:15.833
He was always very clear about
what his music was

00:06:15.833 --> 00:06:19.791
and what music he was supposed
to make to please others.

00:06:19.875 --> 00:06:26.166
From the outset, Mike's aim is not
to make an apology nor a defense,

00:06:26.291 --> 00:06:28.750
nor a critique of the Revolution.

00:06:28.833 --> 00:06:31.791
I don't mean to say that he
didn't have his concerns,

00:06:31.875 --> 00:06:33.375
as everyone else did.

00:06:33.458 --> 00:06:35.833
He just didn't express them through his songs.

00:06:35.916 --> 00:06:41.291
That fact might have started to worry

00:06:41.291 --> 00:06:48.041
not only officials who had nothing to do
with a new kind of song.

00:06:48.083 --> 00:06:51.458
I mean perhaps even some of his own listeners.

00:06:51.458 --> 00:06:54.750
Even some of his own followers.

00:06:54.750 --> 00:07:00.000
And, why not, some of those
troubadours who did compromise.

00:07:00.125 --> 00:07:03.208
The New Trova was more like
the Salvation Army than anything else.

00:07:03.291 --> 00:07:05.125
Because it even had positions.

00:07:05.208 --> 00:07:09.333
It was not only an aesthetic movement,
but it was also a kind of

00:07:09.333 --> 00:07:10.166
social organization.

00:07:10.250 --> 00:07:15.708
And when Mike produced my first album,
some people said he was a counterrevolutionary

00:07:15.708 --> 00:07:20.458
because he didn't use tumbadoras
or bongoes in the arrangements.

00:07:21.958 --> 00:07:25.250
And we were sent to a labor council,

00:07:25.375 --> 00:07:31.291
to the zoo, to feed the lions and such.

00:07:31.875 --> 00:07:34.166
We used to say:
what's wrong with these people?

00:07:34.250 --> 00:07:35.625
They are all crazy!

00:07:35.708 --> 00:07:38.916
The Young Communist League of that time.

00:07:45.125 --> 00:07:50.208
At the headquarters of the National Union
of Writers and Artists of Cuba

00:07:50.208 --> 00:07:54.250
a workshop is held where our creators
answer to the historic call

00:07:54.250 --> 00:07:57.708
of the homeland, producing posters, plays,

00:07:57.791 --> 00:08:02.958
songs and poems impregnated with the
revolutionary sentiment that closely links

00:08:02.958 --> 00:08:08.166
intellectual work with the
problems of all the people.

00:08:13.250 --> 00:08:19.541
"Alas for that love, so filled with thirst..."
That was quite a discovery for me.

00:08:22.750 --> 00:08:25.000
Mike was very musically daring.

00:08:25.041 --> 00:08:29.416
The music I had listened to up to that point

00:08:29.500 --> 00:08:32.750
of the New Trova
was that of Silvio and Pablo,

00:08:32.750 --> 00:08:34.041
who use very simple chords.

00:08:34.125 --> 00:08:38.875
But Mike's music was the example that not only
pamphleteering was done in the New Trova.

00:08:39.041 --> 00:08:42.458
That not only political songs were made,

00:08:42.541 --> 00:08:44.875
but beautiful ones as well.

00:08:44.958 --> 00:08:49.750
Alas for that love, so filled with thirst.

00:08:49.791 --> 00:08:54.833
Flies, lands, and then leaves again!

00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:01.291
Alas for the dreams that go
to die at the sea

00:09:01.458 --> 00:09:04.250
Alas for me!

00:09:05.000 --> 00:09:08.375
Alas for that love that has gone, and will never return

00:09:08.416 --> 00:09:18.375
Alas for me… never more!

00:09:22.625 --> 00:09:29.750
At that time, Mike already started
to have worshippers.

00:09:29.875 --> 00:09:34.375
Not followers, which he
already had, but worshippers.

00:09:34.500 --> 00:09:38.750
People who idolized him and tried to confront him

00:09:38.750 --> 00:09:41.833
with everything around him.

00:09:41.958 --> 00:09:46.916
In other words, "you're better than..."

00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:48.500
"You are better than..."

00:09:48.625 --> 00:09:51.791
I don't think Mike would
let himself be affected by it.

00:09:51.875 --> 00:09:57.083
But when so many people tell you:
why are you working with Amaury?

00:09:57.208 --> 00:09:59.916
Why are you making two albums for Amaury?

00:10:00.083 --> 00:10:02.458
Why don't you make yours?

00:10:02.958 --> 00:10:10.208
There comes a time when this has to hurt you,
because, of course, why not?

00:10:22.083 --> 00:10:26.500
Síntesis was a project conceived
by Carlos Alfonso and me.

00:10:26.583 --> 00:10:30.166
It was the year of the World Festival
of Youth and Students,

00:10:30.250 --> 00:10:32.500
a year of a certain openness.

00:10:32.583 --> 00:10:36.541
Otherwise, I don't believe that Síntesis

00:10:36.541 --> 00:10:37.875
could have materialized.

00:10:37.958 --> 00:10:43.750
Carlos' conception of
vocal arrangements had all

00:10:43.791 --> 00:10:48.041
the prohibited, banned influences
of North American music.

00:10:48.125 --> 00:10:52.708
This was unacceptable to
the cultural establishment.

00:10:52.833 --> 00:10:59.000
With all this compendium of talents,
Síntesis was born as a progressive rock project

00:10:59.000 --> 00:11:01.916
unprecedented in Cuba up to that moment.

00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:07.000
Our original intention was
also to incorporate theater,

00:11:07.083 --> 00:11:11.458
or rather theatricality.

00:11:11.833 --> 00:11:15.041
I think he was interested in making
the best possible rock music,

00:11:15.125 --> 00:11:18.000
without a national label.

00:11:18.125 --> 00:11:26.416
Birdsong tears the sky

00:11:27.333 --> 00:11:32.666
and the dew on the grass

00:11:32.666 --> 00:11:36.875
turns into glass.

00:11:37.083 --> 00:11:41.041
Although he was the group's leader,
I always remember Mike

00:11:41.083 --> 00:11:44.125
as a solitary figure.

00:11:44.875 --> 00:11:50.416
Disagreements arose regarding
the course to be followed

00:11:50.416 --> 00:11:55.916
and I decided to leave Síntesis.

00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.500
From a jungle of dreams they arrived

00:12:04.125 --> 00:12:08.333
Nine rare specimens

00:12:17.916 --> 00:12:21.500
In '78, Mike writes the song

00:12:21.500 --> 00:12:27.625
of the Festival of Youth, and someone
said that Mike's song was a woman's song,

00:12:27.625 --> 00:12:30.000
a song in minor chords.

00:12:30.083 --> 00:12:32.041
There was a lot of prejudice with that.

00:12:32.083 --> 00:12:37.500
I sense in your question a search
for social or political questioning.

00:12:37.583 --> 00:12:39.916
I don't think there ever was.

00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:46.041
Perhaps in the selection of the Grand Prix
there were people who...

00:12:46.041 --> 00:12:48.458
And it's not that they questioned

00:12:48.458 --> 00:12:50.083
the quality of the song.

00:12:50.166 --> 00:12:54.208
But that they thought...
a few, one or two...

00:12:54.291 --> 00:13:01.625
or one, or three... they thought
it was not very militant.

00:13:01.750 --> 00:13:09.250
Then, well, another song ended up
being written to replace Mike's...

00:13:09.375 --> 00:13:10.666
But it was unrelated.

00:13:10.750 --> 00:13:14.125
Silvio was also asked to write a song,
Vamos a andar,

00:13:14.208 --> 00:13:17.041
but Silvio didn't know that
Mike's song had been removed.

00:13:17.125 --> 00:13:18.583
That's the story I know.

00:13:18.666 --> 00:13:28.666
If your hands flying with my own hands
like a thousand seagulls in whose flight

00:13:28.666 --> 00:13:34.375
wind and sun, love and bread
are fully shared,

00:13:34.375 --> 00:13:44.583
one thousand seagulls we shall be to fly over the sea.

00:13:57.458 --> 00:14:01.416
The work of a Revolution and
and the construction

00:14:01.416 --> 00:14:02.833
of socialism is the task

00:14:02.833 --> 00:14:09.166
of men and women who are absolutely free,
and absolutely voluntary.

00:14:09.291 --> 00:14:12.833
That's our people, not the lumpen,

00:14:12.833 --> 00:14:16.916
that scum that got into the Peruvian embassy.

00:14:17.000 --> 00:14:22.541
All the lumpen want their passport
and their safe-conduct.

00:14:22.666 --> 00:14:25.166
What are we going to do? Why
are we going to deny it to them?

00:14:25.208 --> 00:14:32.083
As our official newspaper says, it is
unjust and unconstitutional.

00:14:32.416 --> 00:14:37.833
Like so many thousands of other Cubans,
I decided to join this exodus.

00:14:37.916 --> 00:14:41.708
All I wanted was to withdraw
from the game, to exercise

00:14:41.708 --> 00:14:43.208
my right as a human being to move freely.

00:14:43.208 --> 00:14:45.666
Human being to move freely.

00:14:45.791 --> 00:14:52.291
Those who don't have revolutionary genes,
those who don't have revolutionary blood,

00:14:52.375 --> 00:14:56.458
those who don't have a mind
that adapts to the idea of a Revolution,

00:14:56.541 --> 00:15:02.291
those who don't have a heart that adapts
to the effort and heroism of a Revolution,

00:15:02.291 --> 00:15:08.208
we do not want them,
we do not need them.

00:15:12.416 --> 00:15:15.750
I wasn't allowed to leave.

00:15:40.458 --> 00:15:45.416
My mother had just undergone
knee surgery and was in a wheelchair.

00:15:45.500 --> 00:15:49.708
My neighbors arrived, along with
the members of the New Trova,

00:15:49.791 --> 00:15:55.000
and they were joined by my parents'
neighbors, the majority of them,

00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.083
and they began their act of repudiation.

00:15:58.208 --> 00:16:01.625
A crowd supported by
the police, by the law,

00:16:01.708 --> 00:16:07.291
shouting insults at those who were
leaving, in some cases even hitting them,

00:16:07.375 --> 00:16:11.625
and this with the permission
of the authorities.

00:16:11.708 --> 00:16:17.208
They then tried to break down the
front door of the house and then

00:16:17.208 --> 00:16:19.958
the back door, with kicks.

00:16:20.083 --> 00:16:24.541
This siege lasted one week.

00:16:33.416 --> 00:16:36.375
I know they deny it today,
but that's how it was.

00:16:36.458 --> 00:16:41.333
When they couldn't break down the door,
they slipped in a pamphlet

00:16:41.333 --> 00:16:42.666
that I still have,

00:16:42.750 --> 00:16:48.250
titled "From the New Trova Movement
to ex-comrade Mike Porcel",

00:16:48.333 --> 00:16:55.083
with the audacity to speak
on behalf of the people of Cuba.

00:17:37.125 --> 00:17:38.958
Then came the worst.

00:17:39.041 --> 00:17:43.000
There were nine long years.

00:17:46.500 --> 00:17:52.000
I was erased from the
Cuban cultural scene.

00:17:55.291 --> 00:17:59.708
My son was expelled from the conservatory,
where he had only started

00:17:59.708 --> 00:18:03.000
studying piano, just because he
was Mike Porcel's son.

00:18:03.041 --> 00:18:05.875
He was unable to attend school for a year.

00:18:05.958 --> 00:18:14.000
In the restlessness of my garden,
behind the glass, over the light,

00:18:17.083 --> 00:18:28.458
in the apparent naivety of a verse,

00:18:29.750 --> 00:18:37.625
there, where silence falls,
near to life, the wind, the sun,

00:18:41.833 --> 00:18:46.541
in every branch, in the whole city...

00:18:55.791 --> 00:19:02.125
One of my jobs was as an organist at
the church of San Antonio de Padua,

00:19:02.250 --> 00:19:07.125
and sporadically also in
other churches of the city.

00:19:08.166 --> 00:19:10.916
In the sparrow’s nest

00:19:11.041 --> 00:19:18.125
in the saddest romance and in the flower
I looked for you and I found

00:19:18.125 --> 00:19:20.791
that you did not yet exist,

00:19:20.916 --> 00:19:29.416
that you did not yet exist…
that you did not yet exist.

00:19:49.625 --> 00:19:55.625
In 1988, the UN Human Rights
Council visited Cuba.

00:19:55.791 --> 00:19:59.916
They had an impressive list of cases.

00:20:00.041 --> 00:20:05.958
My friends and my wife continued to
advocate for my release from outside.

00:20:06.041 --> 00:20:10.916
The State Security warned
me not to go to testify.

00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:16.041
But when you reach that point in
life when you have nothing to lose,

00:20:16.166 --> 00:20:18.041
nothing stops you.

00:20:18.166 --> 00:20:22.375
I appeared and testified before
the Human Rights Council.

00:20:22.458 --> 00:20:26.250
Two weeks later, an immigration
officer came to my house

00:20:26.291 --> 00:20:30.791
and told me that my exit
had been authorized.

00:20:30.916 --> 00:20:32.916
Mike Porcel... there are still times

00:20:33.000 --> 00:20:35.375
when you mention him and
some people say: Porcel?

00:20:35.458 --> 00:20:39.708
Almost as if they were worried,

00:20:39.708 --> 00:20:41.250
as if they were a little afraid

00:20:41.291 --> 00:20:42.875
to pronounce his name.

00:20:42.958 --> 00:20:46.000
Visiting and hanging out with someone

00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:47.208
who wants to leave the country

00:20:47.208 --> 00:20:53.625
means that you think the same they do,
or that you're thinking of leaving too.

00:20:53.750 --> 00:20:57.083
You can't realize what it was like,

00:20:57.166 --> 00:21:00.958
because you didn't live through it.
You were afraid.

00:21:00.958 --> 00:21:02.000
'cause your artistic career depends on that too.

00:21:02.083 --> 00:21:04.166
Look, what is insurmountable
are people's experiences.

00:21:04.208 --> 00:21:06.166
People who have suffered,
people who have been

00:21:06.208 --> 00:21:11.375
subjected to these practices,
have only one life

00:21:11.375 --> 00:21:13.208
and their life was taken from them.

00:21:13.291 --> 00:21:15.125
Do you understand?

00:21:18.041 --> 00:21:21.000
They made decisions
at a certain moment,

00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:22.666
put land and sea in between,

00:21:22.750 --> 00:21:26.625
and that is insurmountable.

00:21:26.833 --> 00:21:33.791
At the time Mike decided to leave,
I didn't have much contact with him,

00:21:33.833 --> 00:21:35.666
to be honest.

00:21:35.750 --> 00:21:41.000
I know he was working in a church,
but I really don't know what happened.

00:21:41.125 --> 00:21:44.541
And I have never talked
to him about it,

00:21:44.666 --> 00:21:47.750
nor has he said anything to me,
nor have I asked anybody.

00:21:47.833 --> 00:21:49.500
I didn't want to get too involved in that.

00:21:49.583 --> 00:21:54.166
If there was any silence,
it must have favored Mike in other places.

00:21:54.250 --> 00:21:58.041
One had to say Homeland or Death,
We Shall Overcome.

00:21:58.041 --> 00:21:59.875
Socialism or Death.

00:21:59.958 --> 00:22:04.333
If you weren't like that,
you were screwed.

00:22:04.333 --> 00:22:05.666
Absolutely and totally screwed.

00:22:05.750 --> 00:22:10.125
To see Mike? People were crossing the street.
One day I was coming with him

00:22:10.166 --> 00:22:11.250
from the church...

00:22:11.333 --> 00:22:13.458
What happens is this documentary
is not about that.

00:22:13.541 --> 00:22:16.666
This documentary is to talk about his work,
to make him known.

00:22:16.708 --> 00:22:17.875
Not to make him a martyr,

00:22:17.958 --> 00:22:18.750
because that makes no sense.

00:22:18.833 --> 00:22:21.000
We were walking along and we met
two comrades, whose names

00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:21.958
I will not mention.

00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:25.250
When I say comrades it is not that
they were comrades of the Party...

00:22:25.250 --> 00:22:26.583
I mean singing comrades.

00:22:26.666 --> 00:22:29.208
And they crossed the street.

00:22:29.333 --> 00:22:31.125
There came the two “gusanos” (worms). Us.

00:22:31.208 --> 00:22:36.000
One day, walking down Galeano Street,
I met him with his wife,

00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:38.125
and as always I greeted him.
"How are you?"

00:22:38.125 --> 00:22:39.000
"How are you guys doing?"

00:22:41.416 --> 00:22:44.000
Later I found out that he had said
that one of the few people

00:22:44.000 --> 00:22:47.250
who had greeted him on
the street had been me.

00:23:00.500 --> 00:23:03.916
Later in Spain, he made a
second version "Let the Poets Talk"

00:23:03.958 --> 00:23:06.500
with Elsa Baeza and another actor.

00:23:06.583 --> 00:23:09.875
And they took the show all over Spain,
they took it to Belgium...

00:23:09.958 --> 00:23:14.375
When he arrives in Miami in '92, '93,

00:23:14.458 --> 00:23:17.541
begins to make music for theater plays.

00:23:17.625 --> 00:23:21.416
I think he has made more than 30 plays.

00:23:21.541 --> 00:23:23.833
Mike, as far as I know,

00:23:23.958 --> 00:23:31.166
gives annual concerts
and is a music teacher at a school...

00:23:31.291 --> 00:23:38.791
He has a quiet and beautiful life.
And, in my opinion, a successful life.

00:23:38.916 --> 00:23:42.791
Over the years, many of those
who participated in the act of repudiation,

00:23:42.875 --> 00:23:49.291
many, I'm not saying all,
apologized to me

00:23:49.333 --> 00:23:51.375
for having done that to Mike.

00:23:51.500 --> 00:23:55.708
It seems that some people
felt betrayed in some way.

00:23:55.833 --> 00:24:01.375
He was not given his due.
His talent was not recognized

00:24:01.375 --> 00:24:04.000
as it should have been.

00:24:04.125 --> 00:24:07.666
There are some things that
sometimes have no solution.

00:24:08.875 --> 00:24:12.708
I miss him. Sometimes I think about that.

00:24:12.708 --> 00:24:14.416
You are no longer recording anything, are you?

00:24:14.500 --> 00:24:16.500
Turn off my recorder if you want.

00:24:16.541 --> 00:24:21.666
What I was going to tell you is that...
since all those things happened,

00:24:21.708 --> 00:24:23.750
those incomprehensions towards Mike,

00:24:23.833 --> 00:24:27.916
the acts of repudiation and all those things...

00:24:28.000 --> 00:24:33.708
Well, it's a bit of a sensitive issue,

00:24:33.708 --> 00:24:36.750
because the people who participated
in those acts of repudiation

00:24:38.583 --> 00:24:44.750
may feel some kind of aggression,
or anything, because...

00:24:44.750 --> 00:24:46.000
Nobody is questioning anything.

00:24:46.083 --> 00:24:49.625
I think that was a case of collective madness.

00:24:50.833 --> 00:24:55.708
As I told you, the memories of the
last few years in Cuba are not the best.

00:24:55.833 --> 00:24:57.541
Why should I go back?

00:24:57.625 --> 00:24:59.458
I haven't seen any change.

00:24:59.541 --> 00:25:05.500
The same repressors are still there,
championing for their respect.

00:25:05.583 --> 00:25:11.583
I would like to sing for an audience

00:25:11.625 --> 00:25:13.250
that might still be interested in my music.

00:25:13.333 --> 00:25:17.500
It is simply a matter of principle
and I cannot try

00:25:17.500 --> 00:25:20.125
to embellish this sentiment.

00:25:20.250 --> 00:25:26.416
My life is here, my granddaughter was
born here, my parents died here.

00:25:26.416 --> 00:25:28.541
I will die here.

00:25:28.666 --> 00:25:32.916
In me there is no rancor.

00:26:06.791 --> 00:26:14.416
You ask what’s happened to me
in these last months since I left,

00:26:14.416 --> 00:26:22.916
with the oldest of birds
that migrate to the sun,

00:26:22.958 --> 00:26:28.208
if my song has died between dreams of love.

00:26:30.666 --> 00:26:37.250
And you confuse the lack of faith
with the sorrow and tears

00:26:37.250 --> 00:26:39.916
that today mark my temple.

00:26:39.916 --> 00:26:46.916
And among so many questions
you start to believe

00:26:46.916 --> 00:26:49.416
that I’ve forgotten your kiss and your way of being

00:26:49.416 --> 00:26:59.666
that nothing has come of
losing the beauty of so much pampering.

00:27:06.291 --> 00:27:16.250
I live with my dreams adrift as usual, as always,
still the same as back then,

00:27:16.291 --> 00:27:25.750
a lost sheep, just a little older
or, maybe...

00:27:25.958 --> 00:27:33.958
Perhaps more innocent!
Among seaweeds and snails

00:27:34.125 --> 00:27:42.875
on my own I became a faithful lover
shielded only by my own dreams,

00:27:45.583 --> 00:27:51.583
or by the flight brought to me by a dove.
I surrendered my body

00:27:51.583 --> 00:27:54.000
to the drizzle

00:27:54.041 --> 00:28:02.625
and I felt the absence of your kiss,
but the rain gave me riches

00:28:02.625 --> 00:28:09.625
that your encouragement and kiss
couldn’t give me.

00:28:09.625 --> 00:28:12.041
I have seen that the flower dies alone

00:28:12.083 --> 00:28:23.250
because it’s always missing a partner.

00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:34.000
As you can see,

00:28:34.166 --> 00:28:41.333
I’ve lived only from dawn to sunset,
like a farmer.

00:28:41.333 --> 00:28:44.000
Today I count only on my brawn,

00:28:44.041 --> 00:28:48.583
without fear, without haste,

00:28:50.000 --> 00:28:55.375
Oh yes!... I think that my laughter
may have changed.

00:28:56.375 --> 00:29:03.416
I have a creed to defy
nostalgia and time.

00:29:04.583 --> 00:29:11.500
I still believe in love.
Now I spend winter much nearer the sea.

00:29:11.500 --> 00:29:13.958
I am not without friends,

00:29:13.958 --> 00:29:17.541
a loaf of bread, my guitar,

00:29:17.666 --> 00:29:26.291
and a son. All in all... I cannot complain.

00:29:33.458 --> 00:29:48.458
And though I've been happy
I think of you!