Retirada 2019

A river of freedom
Is rising from the dark
It’s in democracy that it will be reborn
When we’ll have to start again
And the sun rises once more
The sounds of a new dawn
Youth singing the new song
Of hope and also of pain

In the neighborhood, there’s a gathering and no one can miss
We’ll toast to the return with the people’s song
A victory speech from the balcony
While pots and pans clang, dancing to the truck’s march
On the walls, the legend is drawn: never again
But the people go to the polls to vote for impunity

Democracy walks through the streets of history so a parade can travel
While memory sings

The schools are occupied and there’s a police strike
Fear is a ghost that haunts the city
No one finds the way out and a shot rang out
Everyone runs for cover when night falls
From the streets and the lackeys, the nineties pass
They left us with a country on its knees and for sale

Democracy walks through the streets of history so a parade can travel
While memory sings

Turning corners
They say they see him pass
It’s the old man with the candle
He doesn’t want to look back
Benches fly through the air
The speeches are repeated
Pots and looting from a government that’s having fun
How many dreams in suitcases that are leaving us again
How many children around the world who will someday return

Democracy walks through the streets of history so a parade can travel
While memory sings

Amid hugs and memories
You see the flag wave
When one October night
The people come out to celebrate
Times of conquest open up
And also of disappointment
If after every achievement
Frustration will return
In the story I told
At the beginning or the end
Lives are missing that fade away without justice and truth

In every verse free as the wind
Go those who gave everything to dream
They’re like stars in the sky
So many names, faces that are gone
Democracy sings and it’s a choir
And each one shouts their truth
Doña Bastarda told you a story
There’s no present without looking back
There’s no future without memory

The parade sings
On a corner
Through the vacant lots
The melody goes
Through the suburbs
In a plaza
On a stage
In a house it goes
From the depths of time, its voice resonates
It’s the parade shouting from the heart
In right or wrong, saying what I think
It’s laughing and crying
It’s my world to sing
Singing as a reason for joy
Singing despite the anger and the pain
Singing the philosophy of life
Singing for those who no longer have a voice
Singing to burst into an embrace
And so singing, shedding tears in the end
Singing to tighten our bond
With the friends that carnival gives us
Come sing, take a chance
Let’s dance (come dance, come and dream)
Come join the station (the truck is leaving)
The truck is leaving
The parade is leaving with certainty
It will return
Goodbye is the end
Goodbye carnival

The chest explodes with emotion when the descent is sung
Years ago this love arose and a song united us
Goodbye and let’s celebrate
For the road traveled
Here comes Doña Bastarda, poorly made up, singing and dancing
To find laughter, another neighborhood will return
To make it eternal, winter and the fleeting sun
The parade, the neighborhood, and these verses that will be beating there
In a back and forth, the night will bring magic once more
So a choir can sing and break the darkness
Once again
Parade that without father or godfathers
Bastarda will return
Bastarda will return
Carnival
Until we meet again, carnival